Which delegate is credited with mainly writing the Preamble to the United States Constitution?

Gouverneur Morris is credited with mainly writing the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

Morris was a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia in 1787. Near the end of the convention, he served on the Committee of Style and Arrangement, which prepared the final wording of the Constitution.

The committee worked on the document’s organization and language, but historians generally credit Morris with writing the polished final text of the Preamble. He is especially associated with changing the opening from a reference to the states to the memorable phrase “We the People of the United States.”

Morris did not write the entire Constitution by himself. The convention debated the document’s structure, powers, and compromises over several months, and the committee edited language produced through that process. James Madison contributed extensively to the convention and later became known as a major constitutional architect, but Morris is the delegate most specifically linked to the Preamble’s final prose.