After nearly four months of secret debate in the sweltering Pennsylvania State House, 39 of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the finished document. Benjamin Franklin, 81 and ailing, reportedly wept as he signed, and famously told onlookers he was confident the carved sun on Washington's chair was rising, not setting. The document then went to the states for a ratification fight that would take nearly a year.
The convention had been called merely to amend the Articles of Confederation, but by the summer of 1787 the delegates, meeting behind locked doors and guarded windows in Philadelphia, had scrapped the old system entirely. James Madison's notes, kept in shorthand and not published until decades later, remain the best record of the arguments over representation, slavery, and executive power that consumed the summer.
On the final day, George Washington presided as the document was read aloud one last time. Franklin, too weak to give his own closing speech, had it read by James Wilson, urging every delegate to set aside personal objections and sign for the sake of unity. Not everyone did: Edmund Randolph, George Mason, and Elbridge Gerry refused, fearing the new government granted too much power to a distant federal authority.
The signing did not create a government so much as a proposal. Nine of thirteen states had to ratify it before it took effect, and fierce pamphlet wars between Federalists and Anti-Federalists followed for months. The Bill of Rights, promised as a concession to skeptics, would not be added until 1791.
Key people: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison