The US Constitution

September 17th is Constitution Day. This federally observed holiday honors when delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution in 1787. The following is an excerpt from Shaping a Nation: History of the United States from 1450–1865. Read through to learn more about the Constitution and receive a free lesson plan.

Constitutional Convention, Topeka, Kansas Territory [Topeka]

After many meetings, compromises, and drafts, the Constitution was finally finished. The Constitutional Congress held its final meeting in 1787, with 45 of the original 55 delegates present. Of these men, 39 delegates were willing to sign the new US Constitution.

This documented stated that the people had the power to rule the nation. Their government was set up as a democratic republic.

The US Constitution created a federal system that separated the nation’s power into three branches of government. This was similar to how state governments were already set up.

With three branches, no one person or group would have too much power. Each branch had the power to check, or stop, the actions of the other branches. In this way, power among the branches stayed balanced.

Who Were the Constitutional Delegates?

The 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison. The delegates’ average age was 42.

• All of the delegates were White men.
• Nearly all were wealthy landowners who had been born into well-off families.
• More than half attended college (less than 1 percent of Americans did so at that time).
• Twenty-two delegates had served in the War for Independence.
• Nearly half the delegates were slaveholders.
• Eight delegates had signed the Declaration of Independence.

Sharing With the People

Copies of the US Constitution were printed and delivered across the nation. It was posted in public notices, printed in newspapers, and read aloud in public. In every state, people met to talk about it.

The new government the Constitution described shocked many people. They thought it created too much of a change.

The preamble, or start, to the US Constitution reads:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

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