Constitutional Convention

American  

noun

1. the convention in Philadelphia (1787) of representatives from each of the former Colonies, except Rhode Island, at which the Constitution of the United States was framed.

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Constitutional Convention Cultural  

1. The gathering that drafted the Constitution of the United States in 1787; all states were invited to send delegates. The convention, meeting in Philadelphia, designed a government with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. It established Congress as a lawmaking body with two houses: each state is given two representatives in the Senate, whereas representation in the House of Representatives is based on population.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Constitutional Convention

And it requires the consent of Congress to do so, and it’s introduced at the Constitutional Convention by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina.

From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026

Thirteen of the 39 signers of the Constitution were from the South, and it’s estimated that 25 delegates to the Constitutional Convention owned slaves.

From Salon ● May 14, 2026

The Framers called the Constitutional Convention in large part because the states had pursued their own foreign policies at the expense of the national interest.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026

Ben Franklin, famously asked by a woman on the street in Philadelphia what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had wrought, is reported to have said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025

Its major advocates were South Carolina and Georgia, and the chief burden for making the case in the Constitutional Convention fell almost entirely on the South Carolina delegation.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis