George Washington Papers

Draft of the Federal Constitution: Report of Committee of Style, 12 September 1787

Draft of the Federal Constitution: Report of Committee of Style

[12 September 1787]. GW (or, in a few instances, the secretary of the convention William Jackson) entered on his printed copy of the draft of the Constitution presented to the Convention on 12 Sept. by the committee of style, all of the various changes in form and content adopted by the Convention between 12 and 15 Sept. when the Constitution took its final form.

D, DLC:GW.

On 8 Sept. the Convention chose William Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Rufus King “to revise the stile of and arrange the articles which had been agreed to by the House” (Madison’s Notes in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, description begins Max Farrand, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Rev. ed. 4 vols. New Haven, 1966. description ends 2:553). On 12 Sept. Johnson, “from the Committee of revision,” reported “the Constitution as revised and arranged”; it was “ordered that the Members be furnished with printed copies thereof” (Madison’s Notes, ibid., 582). For the next three days the Convention went through the document, and GW entered each of the deletions, additions, or other changes that the Convention adopted between 5 and 12 Sept., all of which appear in the Constitution.

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