Thirty-nine delegates endorsed the Constitution on September 17, 1787, at the Philadelphia convention.
The signing occurred at the Pennsylvania State House, now called Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence had been adopted eleven years earlier. The Constitutional Convention had met for about four months to replace the Articles of Confederation with a stronger federal framework.
The 39 signers represented twelve states. Rhode Island declined to send delegates to the convention, and not every delegate who attended ultimately signed. George Washington presided over the convention, while Benjamin Franklin was the oldest signer at age 81.
The Constitution was not effective merely because delegates signed it. It required ratification by the states, and the new government began operating in 1789. America250’s historical scope therefore reaches beyond the 1776 Declaration to the later constitutional system that shaped the United States.