Who wrote the final draft of the Constitution?
The final draft of the Constitution was the work of Gouverneur Morris. The Constitution was written by several committees over the summer of 1787, but the committee most responsible for the final form we know today is the “Committee of Stile and Arrangement”. This Committee was tasked with getting all of the articles and clauses agreed to by the Convention and putting them into a logical order. On September 10, 1787, the Committee of Style set to work, and two days later, it presented the Convention with its final draft. The members were Alexander Hamilton, William Johnson, Rufus King, James Madison, and Gouverneur Morris. The actual text of the Preamble and of much of the rest of this final draft is usually attributed to Gouverneur Morris.
But only one man actually wrote the words on the paper when the text had been decided. Each of the state delegates to the convention had an influence on the wording of the Constitution. Their names can be found at the link below. The man who actually wrote the words is named Jacob Shallus. He was a clerk who was paid $30 for the job. Below is text that should answer most of your questions: Q. Who actually wrote the Constitution? Q. Who was the penman who, after the text of the Constitution had been agreed on, engrossed it prior to the signing? A. Jacob Shallus who, at the time, was assistant clerk of the Pennsylvania State Assembly, and whose office was in the same building in which the Convention was held. I hope this helps. A. In none of the relatively meager records of the Constitutional Convention is the literary authorship of any part of the Constitution definitely established.
“The Constitutional Convention was called to order on May 25, 1787. After George Washington was nominated and approved as the President of the Convention, the delegates began the task of writing a new constitution for the states currently being governed under the Articles of Confederation. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania was put in charge of the committee to draft the final copy of the Constitution. Other men who had much to do with writing the new Constitution included John Dickinson, Edmund Randolph, Roger Sherman, James Wilson, and George Wythe. Wythe was given the task of putting all the convention’s resolutions and decisions into polished form and Morris actually “wrote” the Constitution. The original copy of the document is preserved in the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. The delegates signed the last draft of the Constitution on September 17, 1787. ”
