Who led the Committee on Style that drafted the Preamble to the United States Constitution?

Gouverneur Morris led the Committee on Style that drafted the Preamble to the United States Constitution.

The Preamble is the Constitution's introductory statement of purposes. It begins with “We the People of the United States” and says the Constitution aims to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure liberty.

Morris was a delegate from Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Committee on Style prepared the final wording near the end of the convention, rather than presenting the Preamble as a major subject of floor debate. Morris's role was editorial and stylistic, although the ideas expressed in the text reflected the convention's broader work.

The Preamble does not itself grant specific powers or rights in the way the Constitution's articles and amendments do. Instead, it introduces the document and summarizes its central purposes. Courts and historians have nevertheless used it as evidence of the framers' intentions.