On this day 250 years ago at New Castle, Delaware a Constitution was
agreed to and resolved upon by the Representatives in full Convention of the Delaware State, . . . the said Representatives being chosen by the Freemen of the said State for that express Purpose.
Delaware’s first Constitution included these articles:
ART. 26. No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.
. . .
ART. 28. To prevent any violence or force being used at the said elections, no person shall come armed to any of them . . .; nor shall any battalion or company, in the pay of the continent, or of this or any other State, be suffered to remain at the time and place of holding the said elections, nor within one mile of the said places respectively, for twenty-four hours before the opening said elections, nor within twenty-four hours after the same are closed, so as in any manner to impede the freely and conveniently carying on the said election: Provided always, That every elector may, in a peaceable and orderly manner, give in his vote on the said day of election.
ART. 29. There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another; and no clergyman or preacher of the gospel, of any denomination, shall be capable of holding any civil once in this State, or of being a member of either of the branches of the legislature, while they continue in the exercise of the pastorial function.
On This Day In The Revolution 