After Maryland’s ratification established the Articles of Confederation as the first United States constitution, Thomas Rodney (1744—1811), a delegate to the Continental Congress from Delaware, recorded in his diary on March 1, 1781, that “the Completion of this grand Union & Confederation was announced by Firing thirteen Cannon on the Hill” in Philadelphia. John Hanson (1715—1783), a delegate from Maryland, was elected the first president of the confederation government.