English was used for the original text of the 1787 United States Constitution.
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention drafted and signed the document in Philadelphia in 1787. The Constitution’s text was written in the English language used by the convention and by the new country’s government and legal institutions.
The parchment original begins with “We the People” and establishes the federal government’s structure, including the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It does not declare an official language for the United States, a point that is sometimes incorrectly inferred from the language of the document.
The Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, and took effect after ratification by the required states in 1788. The first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were later ratified in 1791 and are also written in English.