• The Constitutional Convention met at the State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, also known as Independence Hall.
  • There were 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention; however, only 39 signed the document.
  • Twelve of the thirteen states were represented; Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Convention.
  • The Constitution became law on June 21, 1788, after two-thirds of the states ratified it.
  • Not all the states had ratified the Constitution by April 30, 1789, when George Washington became the first President of the United States.
  • George Washington was President of the Constitutional Convention.
  • Benjamin Franklin, 81, was the oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention; Jonathan Dayton, 26, was the youngest.
  • The structure of the document has not changed since it was written.
  • Of the thousands of proposals that have been made to amend the Constitution, only 33 have been sent to the States for ratification; of those, only 27 amendments have been ratified.

To learn more, and to read the full text of the Constitution, see the Constitution of the United States site at the National Archives and the United States Constitution site at the Library of Congress.

To test your knowledge, take the United States Courts U. S. Constitution quiz.