Constitutional Convention

American

noun

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.

Constitutional Convention Cultural

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.

Example Sentences

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Wilson survived the attack and went on to be a major part of the Constitutional Convention and one of America’s first great constitutional jurists.

From The Wall Street Journal

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

When the Constitutional Convention concluded on Sept. 17, 1787, its president, George Washington, bought a four-volume edition of “Don Quixote” from a Philadelphia bookseller to bring home to Mount Vernon.

From The Wall Street Journal

The Constitutional Convention was symbolically presided over by the retired Gen. George Washington, who sat throughout in a chair with a gilded half sun at its top.

From The Wall Street Journal

At the Constitutional Convention, delegates debated whether to give Congress the power to “make war” or merely to “declare war.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023