Constitutional Convention
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50 free Constitutional Convention trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In the summer of 1787, a few dozen delegates shut themselves in a hot room and argued for four months about how the United States should be governed. They had been sent to patch up a failing system. They came out with an entirely new one, and the choices they made still shape every election and court case in the country. This quiz covers the whole story of the Constitutional Convention of 1787: why it was called, who turned up and who stayed away, the rival plans put forward by large and small states, and the compromises over representation, slavery and the presidency that kept the meeting from collapsing. Later questions follow the document through its signing and the battle to get it ratified. It is written for students revising for a US history or civics test, teachers who want a ready-made review, and anyone curious about how the Constitution came to be. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick something up even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which delegate said at the Constitution's signing that the sun on the presiding officer's chair was rising, not setting?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin, at 81 the oldest signer, admitted he had spent the summer unsure which way that sun was heading.
Q 02Which state refused to send any delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and became the last to ratify?
Rhode Island
Rhode Island held out until May 1790 and gave way only when the other states threatened heavy tariffs on its trade.
Q 03Which state's name is spelled with a letter missing beside its delegates' signatures on the original US Constitution?
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania appears as Pensylvania, a spelling that was accepted in the 1700s and is also cast into the Liberty Bell.
Q 04Which delegate, unanimously elected to preside over the 1787 Constitutional Convention, barely spoke in its debates?
George Washington
George Washington broke his silence on the final day, backing a change to smaller House districts of 30,000 residents instead of 40,000.
Q 05Which future president missed the 1787 Constitutional Convention because he was serving as American minister to France?
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson followed the news from Paris and, in a letter to John Adams, described the delegates as an assembly of demigods.
Q 06What fraction of a state's enslaved population did the 1787 Constitutional Convention count toward its House seats?
Three-fifths
Three-fifths was a ratio borrowed from a failed 1783 amendment, and it gave slaveholding states extra weight in Congress for decades.
Q 07What form of government did an elder delegate tell Elizabeth Powel the 1787 Constitutional Convention had produced?
A republic
A republic was the reply recorded in delegate James McHenry's journal, with a warning that it would last only if Americans could keep it.
Q 08Which document, America's first national charter, was the 1787 Constitutional Convention officially called to revise?
The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation could be changed only if all thirteen states agreed, so the delegates quietly dropped their brief and started afresh.
Q 09Which Virginia delegate, later the fourth US president, is remembered as the Father of the Constitution?
James Madison
James Madison reached the city days ahead of the opening, drafted the plan that set the agenda, and took the fullest notes of the debates.
Q 10In which city did delegates meet from May to September 1787 to write the United States Constitution?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia's State House, now Independence Hall, lent the delegates the same room where the Declaration of Independence had been signed eleven years earlier.
Q 11Which New York delegate told the 1787 Constitutional Convention that the president should be chosen to serve for life?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton became New York's only delegate when his two colleagues walked out in July, which left the state unable to cast a vote.
Q 12Which Connecticut delegate devised the Great Compromise that ended the 1787 standoff between large and small states?
Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman is the only person to have signed all four of the country's great founding papers, from the Continental Association to the Constitution.
Q 13Which small-state proposal at the 1787 Constitutional Convention wanted a one-house Congress with one vote per state?
The New Jersey Plan
Q 21Under the Great Compromise of 1787, which body gives every state the same number of votes regardless of its size?
The Senate
The Senate nearly lost its equal votes: the deal passed by five states to four on July 16, 1787, with Massachusetts split down the middle.
Q 22Which method of picking the president did the 1787 Constitutional Convention adopt after dropping election by Congress?
An electoral college
An electoral college also let the delegates cut the president's term from seven years to four, since he would no longer owe his job to Congress.
Q 23Which series of 85 essays, published under the pen name Publius, urged New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution?
The Federalist Papers
The New Jersey Plan was the work of William Paterson, who reminded the delegates they had been sent to repair the existing government, not to found a national one.
Q 14Which governor presented the Virginia Plan to the 1787 Constitutional Convention but later refused to sign the result?
Edmund Randolph
Edmund Randolph switched sides again in 1788, voting for ratification so Virginia would not be left out, and went on to become the first US attorney general.
Q 15Which peg-legged delegate gave more speeches than anyone at the 1787 Constitutional Convention and wrote the Preamble?
Gouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris, who lost his left leg after a carriage accident, spoke 173 times and is remembered as the Penman of the Constitution.
Q 16Which Virginia planter, master of Gunston Hall, refused to sign the Constitution because it lacked a bill of rights?
George Mason
George Mason had written most of Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights, which later served as a basis for the very amendments he wanted.
Q 17Which 1786 uprising of indebted Massachusetts farmers convinced many leaders that the national government was too weak?
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion had to be put down partly by a privately funded militia, because Congress could not pay for troops of its own.
Q 18Which state became the first to ratify the US Constitution, approving it unanimously on December 7, 1787?
Delaware
Delaware approved it by 30 votes to 0 and still goes by the nickname The First State.
Q 19Which phrase, written extra large on the parchment, opens the Preamble of the United States Constitution?
We the People
We the People first led into a list of all thirteen states, until the final draft swapped the list for the words of the United States.
Q 20Which Massachusetts delegate refused to sign the Constitution in 1787 and later died in office as US vice president?
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry later gave his name to gerrymandering, after Massachusetts approved new voting districts during his time as governor.
The Federalist Papers poured out of New York's presses at a furious pace, with several new essays sometimes appearing in a single week.
Q 24Which state became the ninth to ratify the Constitution in June 1788, the number needed to put it into effect?
New Hampshire
New Hampshire voted 57 to 47, beating Virginia to the decisive place in the queue by just four days.
Q 25Which 1786 meeting on trade, attended by only five states, called for the gathering that wrote the Constitution?
The Annapolis Convention
The Annapolis Convention drew just twelve delegates, who gave up on trade and instead urged every state to send representatives to a wider meeting the next May.
Q 26What did the 1787 Constitutional Convention forbid Congress ever to tax, a win for the South's cash crops?
Exports
Exports remain off limits to federal taxation today. A Deep South delegate had warned of dire consequences if his region's farm produce could be charged on its way out.
Q 27Which French thinker's The Spirit of Law gave the Constitution's framers their model for separating government powers?
Montesquieu
Montesquieu was cited by America's founders more often than any source except the Bible, and one leading delegate called him the oracle who is always consulted.
Q 28Which institution displays the original signed United States Constitution in its Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom?
The National Archives
The National Archives has displayed the parchment since 1952. During World War II it was hidden for safekeeping at Fort Knox.
Q 29Which silver object, made by Philip Syng in 1752, was used at the signings of both the Declaration and the Constitution?
An inkstand
An inkstand by Syng is one of only four objects that survive from the Convention itself, alongside the Liberty Bell and the presiding officer's chair.
Q 30What were more than half of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention trained to be?
Lawyers
Lawyers by training made up more than half of them, and several had been judges, though only about a quarter earned their main living at the bar.