Constitutional Convention

May 25, 1787Philadelphia, Pennsylvaniahigh importance

From May to September 1787, delegates met in secret in Philadelphia and, instead of patching up the failing Articles of Confederation, designed an entirely new framework of government: the U.S. Constitution.

Where this fits on the timeline. Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and after winning the war, the young United States was quietly falling apart. Its first government, the Articles of Confederation, was too weak to hold thirteen quarreling states together. In the summer of 1787, delegates gathered to fix it and ended up inventing the government the country still uses today. The Bill of Rights would be added four years later to finish the deal.

A government too weak to work

The Articles of Confederation were failing. Under the country's first constitution, the national Congress could not tax, so it was broke. It could not regulate trade, so states slapped tariffs on each other like separate countries. There was no president to enforce laws and no national courts to settle disputes. Worst of all, changing the Articles required the unanimous agreement of all thirteen states, so nothing could be fixed.

A rebellion lit the fuse. In the winter of 1786 to 1787, Shays's Rebellion broke out in western Massachusetts, where debt-burdened farmers led by former army captain Daniel Shays shut down courts by force. The national government had no army to stop it, and the sight of the country unable to keep order convinced leaders like George Washington and James Madison that something had to change. A small meeting at Annapolis in 1786 had already called for a bigger convention in Philadelphia.

Behind closed doors

Fifty-five men, one hot summer, total secrecy. The convention met at the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Of 74 men appointed, 55 delegates from 12 states attended; Rhode Island refused to send anyone. The delegates voted George Washington their president, closed the windows and doors, and swore themselves to secrecy so they could argue and change their minds without the public watching. Almost everything we know about what was said comes from the careful daily notes of James Madison, which were not published until 1840, four years after he died.

Who was there, and who was not. At 81, Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate; crippled by gout and a kidney stone, he was carried to the sessions in a sedan chair. Alexander Hamilton pushed for a strong national government, and Gouverneur Morris later polished the final wording, including the famous opening 'We the People.' Some giants of the Revolution were missing: Thomas Jefferson was in Paris and John Adams was in London as diplomats, and Patrick Henry refused to come at all, saying he 'smelt a rat' and feared a government that was too powerful.

The great clash: big states versus small states

Two rival plans. The biggest fight was over how states would be represented in Congress. The Virginia Plan, written by Madison, gave more seats to states with more people, which favored big states like Virginia. The New Jersey Plan kept the old system of one vote per state, which protected small states. For weeks the convention nearly broke apart over it.

The Great Compromise. The deadlock was broken by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, whose Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise) split the difference: Congress would have two houses. In the House of Representatives, states get seats based on population; in the Senate, every state gets an equal two. That two-house Congress is still how the United States makes laws today.

The compromises over slavery

Equality on paper, slavery in practice. Slavery split the delegates too. Southern states wanted enslaved people counted toward their population, to gain more seats in the House, while denying them any rights. The Three-Fifths Compromise counted three out of every five enslaved people for both representation and taxation. Delegates also agreed that Congress could not ban the importation of enslaved people until 1808, and added a Fugitive Slave Clause requiring escaped enslaved people to be returned even from free states. These bargains held the convention together, but they wrote slavery into the nation's founding law and left a wound the country would later fight a civil war over.

Inventing the presidency

A brand-new office. The delegates argued for months over the executive branch: one president or several? Chosen how, and for how long? Choosing the president was so hard the convention voted on it roughly sixty times before settling on the Electoral College, a compromise between letting Congress pick the president and letting the people vote directly. To keep any one branch from growing too strong, they built in separation of powers and checks and balances, ideas drawn in part from the French thinker Montesquieu, dividing the government into a legislative, executive, and judicial branch that each limit the others.

Signing, and a rising sun

September 17, 1787. After nearly four months, 39 delegates signed the finished Constitution (one signature was added for an absent delegate by a colleague). Three delegates present refused to sign, including George Mason, who objected that it had no bill of rights. As the last members signed, the aged Franklin pointed to a sun carved on Washington's chair and said he was now sure it was 'a rising and not a setting sun.' That chair still sits in Independence Hall, and September 17 is now marked every year as Constitution Day.

The fight to ratify

Nine states had to say yes. Signing was only half the battle; the Constitution now needed 9 of 13 states to ratify it. The country split into Federalists, who supported it, and Anti-Federalists, who feared a strong central government and demanded protections for individual rights. To win support, Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay wrote the 85 Federalist Papers explaining the plan, and supporters promised to add a Bill of Rights. Delaware ratified first, in December 1787, and New Hampshire became the decisive ninth state on June 21, 1788. The new government began the next year, and George Washington was inaugurated as the first president in 1789.

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Key Takeaways

Called in 1787 to fix the failing Articles of Confederation, the convention wrote an entirely new Constitution instead

55 delegates from 12 states met in secret in Philadelphia from May to September 1787, with George Washington presiding

The Great Compromise settled the big-state vs. small-state fight with a two-house Congress: the House by population, the Senate equal

Compromises over slavery, including the Three-Fifths Compromise, were written into the document and left deep problems for the future

The delegates invented the presidency and the Electoral College and built in separation of powers and checks and balances

39 delegates signed on September 17, 1787; the states ratified it after the Federalist Papers debate and a promise of a Bill of Rights

Key Figures

James Madison

March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836

Father of the Constitution; author of the Virginia Plan and the convention’s chief note-taker

Alexander Hamilton

January 11, 1755 – July 12, 1804

Nationalist who argued for a strong central government and co-wrote the Federalist Papers

Benjamin Franklin

January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790

At 81 the oldest delegate; elder statesman who helped broker compromises

George Washington

February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799

Unanimously elected president of the Convention, lending it his prestige

Patrick Henry

May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799

Declined his seat, saying he "smelt a rat," and later led the Anti-Federalist opposition