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in powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution, but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers or as inserted for greater caution." The acceptance of these eleven States having been signified to the Congress, provision was made for putting the new Constitution in operation. This was effected on March 4, 1789, when the Government was organized, with George Washington as President, and John Adams, Vice-President; the Senators and Representatives elected by the States which had acceded to the Constitution, organizing themselves as a Congress. Meantime, two States were standing, as we have seen, unquestioned and unmolested, in an attitude of absolute independence. The Convention of North Carolina, on August 2, 1788, had rejected the proposed Constitution, or, more properly speaking, had withheld her ratification until action could be taken upon the subject-matter of the following resolution adopted by her Convention: "_Resolved_, That a declaration of rights, asserting and securing from encroachment the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and the unalienable rights of the people, together with amendments to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of government, ought to be laid before Congress and the Convention of the States that shall or may be called for the purpose of amending the said Constitution, for their consideration, previous to the ratification of the Constitution aforesaid on the part of the State of North Carolina." More than a year afterward, when the newly organized Government had been in operation for nearly nine months, and when--although no convention of the States had been called to revise the Constitution--North Carolina had good reason to feel assured that the most important provisions of her proposed amendments and "declaration of rights" would be adopted, she acceded to the amended compact. On November 21, 1789, her Convention agreed, "in behalf of the freemen, citizens, and inhabitants of _the State of North Carolina_," to "adopt and ratify" the Constitution. In Rhode Island the proposed Constitution was at first submitted to a direct vote of the people, who rejected it by an overwhelming majority. Subsequently--that is, on May 29, 1790, when the reorganized Government had been in operation for nearly f
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