Signatures

Signatures

Bust out your magnifying glass. We're taking an up-close look at Signatures of the US Constitution.

Quote #1

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.

In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

Attest: William Jackson, SECRETARY

George Washington, PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY FROM VIRGINIA

NEW HAMPSHIRE:
John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

MASSACHUSETTS:
Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King

CONNECTICUT:
William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman

NEW YORK:
Alexander Hamilton

NEW JERSEY:
William Livingston, David Brearly, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton

PENNSYLVANIA:
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris

DELAWARE:
George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom

MARYLAND:
James McHenry, Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll

VIRGINIA:
John Blair, James Madison, Jr.

NORTH CAROLINA:
William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson

SOUTH CAROLINA:
John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler

GEORGIA:
William Few, Abraham Baldwin

Only 41 of the 55 men who participated in the Constitutional Convention actually signed the finished product; several left before negotiations were completed, and three major figures among the Founding Fathers—Edmund Randolph, George Mason, and Elbridge Gerry—objected to the Constitution's expansions of government power and refused to sign on principle. Still, at least one delegate signed from 12 of the 13 states; only Rhode Island, which boycotted the Constitutional Convention entirely, lacked a signatory.