The U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia
On this day · 17 September 1787
On September 17, 1787, after a summer of secret debate, 39 delegates signed the document that still frames American government.
On September 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered one last time at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia—the same hall, now called Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence had been drafted. After nearly four months of closed-door argument, 39 of them signed the new Constitution of the United States.
The summer had been a contest of compromises. George Washington presided; James Madison kept the notes that became history’s record; and an ailing Benjamin Franklin, then 81, was too weak to deliver his closing plea for unity, so James Wilson read it aloud for him.
Franklin made the final motion to sign, approved by ten of the state delegations.
The four-page document established the framework of the federal government and remains the world’s oldest written national constitution still in force. Ratification battles lay ahead, but the signatures of September 17 set the new republic on its course.
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