The Constitutional Convention formally opened in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, once a quorum of seven states arrived, electing George Washington as its presiding officer. Over the following four months, delegates debated and compromised their way to a new framework of government that would replace the weak Articles of Confederation.
Delegates had been trickling into Philadelphia for over a week, but it took until May 25 to assemble a quorum of seven states in the sweltering Pennsylvania State House, the same building where the Declaration of Independence had been signed eleven years earlier. James Madison, ever the meticulous note-taker, recorded that the first order of business was electing George Washington as president of the convention, a choice made unanimously and without debate.
The delegates had officially been sent merely to revise the Articles of Confederation, the loose compact that had proven too weak to raise taxes, regulate commerce, or maintain order after Shays' Rebellion had frightened the propertied classes. Instead, within days, Edmund Randolph's Virginia Plan proposed scrapping the Articles entirely for a genuinely new national government with separated powers.
What followed was a summer of closed-door negotiation, sworn to secrecy so delegates could speak candidly, covering the windows against Philadelphia's heat and prying eyes alike. The result, signed in September, created the presidency, a bicameral Congress, and an independent judiciary, along with the notorious compromises over slavery that would haunt the young republic for the next seventy-eight years.