History
On June 5, 1781, a constitutional convention was convened and began writing the state's new constitution. In the Spring of 1782, a draft of the constitution was sent to town meetings for ratification. During the town meetings there were substantial proposed amendments that the Constitution was redrafted by the Convention and resubmitted to town meetings in Fall 1782. The second draft of the 1782 Constitution was met with even more proposed amendments. A third draft was necessary before it was resubmitted and accepted in the town meetings "as is." In Spring 1783, a requisite number of town meetings ratified the third draft and it became effective June 2, 1784. On October 31, 1783, the constitution was established and the Convention adjourned sine die, after having declared the constitution ratified.
On September 7, 1791, a constitutional convention began drafting 72 amendments to the 1784 Constitution be redrafted into a new whole document and submitted it to the people on February 8, 1792. The revisions of the 1784 Constitution submitted to the people became effective June 5, 1793.
Since 1793, there have been only five constitutional conventions. They have proposed 64 amendments, of which the voters have ratified 26. On November 6, 2012, voters for the seventeenth time declined to call a constitutional convention.
Before 1980, the only method for amending the constitution was by convention every seven years. The adoption of an amendment to Pt. II, Art. 100 allowed for either the General Court or Constitutional Convention to submit amendments to the people for adoption.
Read more about this topic: Constitution Of New Hampshire
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“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)