Philadelphia was already hot and humid when delegates began drifting into the city. On May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention met for the first time in the east room of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall). The Declaration of Independence had been debated in this very room just 11 years earlier. The delegates would meet in the east room all summer. On some days, temperatures rose well into the nineties.
The delegates' first action was to elect George Washington president of the convention because no man was more admired and respected than the former commander in chief of the Continental army. When the war ended, Washington could have used his power and popularity to make himself a king. Instead, he went home to …show more content…
Today, the building is called Independence Hall.
As a group, the delegates were, in the words of a modern historian, “the well-bred, the well-fed, the well-read, and the well-wed.” Their average age was 42. At 81, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania was the oldest, arriving at the convention each day in a sedan chair carried by four good-natured prisoners from a nearby jail.
Most of the delegates brought extensive political experience to the meeting. More than two-thirds were lawyers, and most had served in their state legislatures or held a state office. Thomas Jefferson was so impressed by the ability and experience of these men that he called the convention “an assembly of demi-gods.”

The Father of the Constitution The best prepared of the delegates was James Madison of Virginia. One delegate wrote of Madison, “In the management of every great question he evidently took the lead in the Convention.” Indeed, Madison's influence was so great that later he would be called the “Father of the …show more content…
The basic purpose of government, they believed, was to protect the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And they agreed, in the words of the Declaration, that the “just powers” of governments came from “the consent of the governed.”

In part, these beliefs reflected the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like England's John Locke. Human institutions, these liberal thinkers had argued, should be based on “laws of nature,” among which were the rights to liberty and equality. The best way to protect these rights, the delegates agreed, was through some form of republic.

From New England's town meetings to lawmaking bodies like the Virginia House of Burgesses, Americans had a long tradition of participating in their own government. After the American Revolution, all the states had adopted constitutions that embraced republican ideals. Despite many differences in details, every state had some form of representative government and had expanded the rights to vote and to hold office. The state constitutions helped to shape the delegates'