What 1787 meeting in Philadelphia produced the United States Constitution?

The Constitutional Convention produced the United States Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787.

The convention met in the Pennsylvania State House, now called Independence Hall, from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Delegates had originally been sent to revise the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first governing framework. They soon concluded that a stronger and substantially redesigned federal system was needed.

The delegates debated representation, taxation, executive power, the judiciary, and the relationship between national and state governments. The Connecticut Compromise created a two-chamber Congress: representation by population in the House and equal state representation in the Senate. The convention signed the finished Constitution on September 17.

The meeting is often called the Philadelphia Convention or Federal Convention, but “Constitutional Convention” is the standard answer. It was not the Continental Congress, which was the revolutionary-era legislature, and it was not the Annapolis Convention, which met in 1786 and helped lead to the 1787 gathering. Its work established the constitutional foundation celebrated by America250.