Constitutional Convention (United States)

Between 25 May and 17 September 1787, delegates from twelve of the thirteen American states met behind closed doors in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, now Independence Hall. Summoned to improve the Articles of Confederation, they instead wrote an entirely new framework of government, the Constitution of the United States. Contemporaries called the gathering the Federal Convention or the Philadelphia Convention.

After the American Revolution, the states were bound together by the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777 and fully ratified in 1781. The arrangement worked more like a treaty between sovereign republics than a national government. Congress had a single chamber in which each state cast one vote; it could not levy taxes or regulate trade, and changes to the Articles required every state's consent. By the mid-1780s states were withholding money, so Congress could not pay interest on its foreign debt. Rhode Island blocked a federal import duty in 1782 and New York another in 1785. A post-war depression bred demands for debt relief, and in Massachusetts indebted farmers rose in Shays' Rebellion of 1786–1787. After a poorly attended meeting at Annapolis in September 1786, Congress endorsed a convention in Philadelphia on 21 February 1787 to revise the Articles.

The difficulty of travel delayed the start until a quorum of seven states arrived on 25 May. Rhode Island never sent anyone, and New Hampshire's delegates only appeared in late July. The delegates unanimously chose George Washington to preside, gave each state delegation one vote and agreed to keep their debates secret, even nailing the windows shut in the summer heat. James Madison's private notes, published only after his death in 1836, remain the fullest record.

Madison came prepared. His Virginia Plan, presented by Governor Edmund Randolph on 29 May, proposed a powerful national government with a two-chamber legislature apportioned by population. The smaller states answered with William Paterson's New Jersey Plan, which kept one vote per state and amended the Articles rather than replacing them; it was defeated by seven states to three on 19 June. Alexander Hamilton put forward a scheme modelled on British government, with a senate and executive serving for life, but it was not even debated.

Representation deadlocked the convention for weeks. The solution, championed by the Connecticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth and refined by a committee on which Benjamin Franklin sat, gave the House of Representatives seats by population and the Senate equal representation for every state. It passed narrowly on 16 July. Slavery also shaped the outcome; at least a third of the delegates owned slaves. Seats and direct taxes were to be calculated by counting free inhabitants plus three-fifths of enslaved people, and Congress was barred from banning the international slave trade before 1808. A fugitive slave clause was also strengthened. After long debate, the delegates settled on a single president chosen by electors in each state.

A Committee of Detail, chaired by John Rutledge, produced a first draft during a recess from 26 July to 6 August. The delegates then debated it clause by clause, and a Committee of Style, with Gouverneur Morris as the chief draftsman, polished the final text, including its preamble. On 17 September, 39 of the 55 delegates who had attended signed. Three who stayed to the end refused: Edmund Randolph, George Mason and Elbridge Gerry, Mason chiefly because there was no bill of rights. Franklin urged unity, admitting he did not approve of every part.

By a vote of nine states to one, the delegates had decided that the Constitution should go to specially elected state conventions rather than to state legislatures. The missing bill of rights became the main argument of its opponents, and many states ratified on the understanding that one would follow. Rhode Island was the last to accept, in May 1790.

Our 1783 map shows the United States at independence under the Articles of Confederation, and our 1800 map shows the republic in the early years of the new Constitution.