at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1787 May 14th - 1787 September
Although the United States of America was formed by the
Articles of Confederation,
the faults in the
Articles began to surface from the start.
By January of 1787, these faults became overwhelming obvious, forcing Congress to call
a convention to amend the
Articles of Confederation.
The convention would be composed of representatives of the thirteen states.
Also called the Philadelphia Convention, the Constitutional Convention was convened in May of 1787,
and held in secret, behind the closed doors of the State House building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The representatives attending reads like a Who's Who in American politics from the American Revolution
to nearly two generations after the Constitutional Convention ended.
Under orders only to make changes to the
Articles of Confederation, they disobeyed their instructions
(risking charges of treason), and instead drafted a document (
The Constitution of the US) that would
replace the
Articles. The Constitution transformed what was the United States of America,
a pure republic, into a new United States of America that was a democratic republic with a stronger
national government.