Levi Woodbury, Jacksonian Jurist

New Hampshire, the ninth state to ratify the Federal Constitution, entered the Union June 21, 1788, thereby affording the two-thirds majority legally required to make that instrument operative and binding * Like her sister commonwealths in New England, the Granite State at first evinced an almost complete apathy in the election of State and Federal officers, notwithstanding the fact that the State Constitution of 1784 had extended the franchise to include all males aged twenty-one and upwards who paid a poll tax and had resided in their towns for two years. The two-party system was yet to crystallize and although candidates might differ to some extent in their expressed opinions, there was still too narrow a margin of variance prevailing in their views to constitute a clearly delineated line of cleavage.