Several of the States incorporated in their acts of ratification a kind of political creed of the inalienable rights of the individual. Although not intended as amendments or even as conditions of ratification, they were supposed to be a kind of perpetual compact between the State and the nation. They were modelled after the Bill or Declaration of Rights in some of the State constitutions. Rhode Island, for instance, declared that "the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution." Time was to show in seasons of national aggrandisement, during the reconstruction period, for instance, how futile such State barriers would be in hedging about the national powers. These sticklers for individualism and fearing souls could not see that the central clearing-house, which the people of the respective States were creating, could not be confined to a few expressed powers; that unseen situations and sudden emergencies would call for action not specified; that to make a list of allowable acts in advance was simply an impossibility. In their alarm, they failed to see that the individuals of which the States were composed would come in contact more closely with local than with national affairs; that they would participate more frequently in State than in Federal Government; and that this very participation for the regulation of local affairs would perpetuate a fealty to the State which would guarantee its perpetuity within its proper sphere. But, at the time, many agreed with Lowndes, who predicted in the South Carolina Convention that despite all precautions the State powers under the Constitution would soon be confined to the regulation of ferries and roads. All anxiety about ratification ceased on the second day of July, the anniversary of the motion for independence, when the favourable act of New Hampshire, the ninth State necessary, reached Congress. The matter of arranging for putting the new Government into motion was referred to a committee. In taking this action, the old Congress was sealing its death-warrant. It would cease to exist, and be replaced by two houses of Congress under the Constitution. It had served well its purpose. Called into life by the necessity of colonial co-operation in 1774, the Continental Congress had gradually assumed sufficient power to bring a great war to a successful conclusion. Deprived of much of this power under the Articles, circumscribed by the suspicious bounds of State sovereignty, the Congress had become a thing of contempt. Not a member was now present who had been among those assembled at the hall of the Carpenters' Association in Philadelphia fourteen years before. Not a man now present was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.