Which delegate was the chief draftsman of the final United States Constitution text?

Gouverneur Morris was the chief draftsman of the final United States Constitution text.

Morris served on the Committee of Style and Arrangement, a five-member group appointed near the end of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The committee revised and organized the articles already approved by the delegates, producing the final draft presented on September 12, 1787.

Morris is credited with shaping the Constitution’s final wording and writing its celebrated Preamble, including the opening phrase “We the People.” His role was primarily editorial and stylistic, not that of a sole author of the entire Constitution.

James Madison supplied an influential plan and kept extensive notes, while the Committee of Detail produced the first full draft. Jacob Shallus later engrossed the final text by hand on parchment. These different contributions explain why claims that one person “wrote the Constitution” can be misleading.