TODAY: Dec. 12 is a big day in Pennsylvania’s history.

It’s the day Pennsylvania ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the second state to do so. Delaware was first just five days earlier.

The delegates to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention met at what was then the Pennsylvania State House, but is now Independence Hall, in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania’s early approval of the document helped create momentum for ratification in the rest of the thirteen states.

However, there was opposition at home. Opponents of the Constitution opposed the action, calling it hasty.

“The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention…,” signed by 21 of the 23 members of the state legislature who voted against ratification, outlines the grievances of the anti-Federalists, according to the Library of Congress. “The minority charged that the assembly’s hasty action in calling a ratifying convention prevented the people of the state from debating the issue:

“The election for members of the [ratifying] convention was held at so early a period and the want of information was so great, that some of us did not know of it until after it was over, and we have reason to believe that great numbers of the people of Pennsylvania have not yet had an opportunity of sufficiently examining the proposed constitution,” the work noted.

“Passions over the vote ran so high that proponents of ratification had, as the anti-Federalists bitterly recounted, arranged for a mob to seize and drag opponents to the State House, where they were ‘detained by force’ to ensure a quorum of the legislature. Ultimately, supporters of ratification secured victory on July 2, 1788, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution.”

Interestingly, one of the nation’s founding fathers, John Jay, was born on Dec. 12, 1745.