This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, another installment of our series about us, the story of America series,

with Hillsdale College Professor Bill McLeigh, author of the fantastic book Land of Hope. When

the Constitution was finished, it took a massive effort on the part of the framers to make it

the law of the land. Let's get into the story.

Here's Bill McLeigh.

Okay.

So the Constitution had been drafted, had been approved,

but it didn't automatically take effect.

Now it had to be ratified, ratified by the respective states.

And this was not going to be easy.

There was a real fear of any expansion of power, of centralized power, of national power,

and not without reason. The founders had understood this was going to be a difficult thing,

but they also understood there needed to be that kind of popular approbation,

that popular approval of the Constitution,

for it to be legitimate, for it to be accepted by the people as their ruling document.

They crafted Article 7 of the Constitution with this end in view,

that the Constitution would become law by the conventions of nine of the 13 states.

Why conventions? They could have done it. The obvious, easy way to do it would be to use the state legislatures of the 13 states.

Well, this was a very, very smart move on the part of the proponents of the Constitution.

Conventions were different from the state legislatures.

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