Imagine opening a draft of the Constitution and discovering that the president serves seven years, can't run again, is elected by Congress, and is addressed as "His Excellency."
America came surprisingly close to living under something like that.
Beginning Sept. 14, the National Archives will display all seven printed pages of George Washington's annotated working draft of the Constitution together for the first time.
The document dates to August 1787, when the Constitutional Convention was still wrestling with what the federal government would actually become.
From the National Archives:
The National Archives Museum will debut a once-in-a-lifetime temporary exhibit–continuing the celebration of 250 years of America’s independence and the foundations of our nation.
For the first time ever, the historic Rotunda at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC, will display all seven pages of George Washington’s Annotated Copy of a Draft of the U.S. Constitution.
Beginning September 14 through September 27, 2026 in celebration of Constitution Day, visitors will see firsthand a secret printing of a draft of the U.S. Constitution, revised in Washington’s original handwriting as he presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787–two years before being unanimously elected as the first President of the United States.
Archivist of the United States Bradford P. Wilson said this exhibit, on display in the permanent home of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, reminds us of the monumental effort and genius it took to design the plan of government launching America on the path of freedom and prosperity.
“As we celebrate 250 years of America’s independence as a nation, I invite all Americans to the National Archives Museum to witness and to celebrate the original written records of what a popular historian called ‘the miracle at Philadelphia,’” Wilson said.
We usually encounter the Constitution as a finished object. Four parchment pages, seven articles, "We the People," and Washington's signature at the bottom.
His working copy tells a messier and more interesting story.
On Aug. 6, the Convention's Committee of Detail delivered a printed draft containing a preamble and 23 articles. Washington and Convention Secretary William Jackson used one copy to record deletions and additions approved as delegates continued arguing over the document.
From the National Archives:
Draft of the Federal Constitution: Report of Committee of Detail
6 August 1787. On 6 Aug. John Rutledge delivered the report of the “Committee of detail” in the form of a printed draft of the proposed federal constitution and provided copies for the members. GW and the secretary of the Convention, William Jackson, entered on one printed copy those deletions and additions that were adopted by the Convention between 6 Aug. and 3 Sept. and were included in the draft referred to the committee of five elected on 8 Sept. “to revise the stile of and arrange the articles which had been agreed to by the House” (Madison’s Notes in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 2:177, 553).
D, DNA: RG 360, Records of the Federal Convention.
On 23 July the Convention voted that “the proceedings of the Convention for the establishing of a Natl. Govt, (except the part relating to the Executive), be referred to a Committee to prepare & report a Constitution conformable thereto” (Madison’s Notes in Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 2:95). Not only did the part of the Constitution “relating to the Executive” not appear in the committee draft of the Constitution of 6 Aug., it and most of the provisions regarding the Senate as well as several other important sections of the Constitution did not receive final approval of the Convention until after GW and Jackson had discontinued entering the changes that were being made in the draft. See the note in Draft of the Federal Constitution: Report of Committee of Style, 12 September.
The presidency they were considering would be almost unrecognizable today. The executive would be elected by the national legislature for a single seven-year term and couldn't be elected a second time.
The draft even proposed an official title: "His Excellency."
No Electoral College, no four-year term, and no second campaign.
The preamble was different too. Instead of "We the People of the United States," the August draft began, "We the People of the States of" and proceeded to name each of the 13 states.
The words we now recite as if they were inevitable were not inevitable at all.
By September, delegates had sent their accumulated work to a five-member Committee of Style and Arrangement. William Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Rufus King reorganized the sprawling draft.
The 23 articles became seven, and the final preamble emerged from that committee, with Morris generally credited with much of its literary form.
Even then, they weren't finished.
Washington's surviving Sept. 12 working draft shows more handwritten changes made during the final days before delegates approved the text. The document signed Sept. 17 was the product of months of proposals, defeats, compromises, reconsiderations, and revisions.
There is something worth remembering in those crossed-out words.
We sometimes speak about the Founders as if a collection of geniuses entered a room in Philadelphia already knowing the answers.
They didn't.
Serious conflicts divided large states from small ones; delegates fought over representation, executive power, federal authority, slavery, commerce, and how the new government would survive without swallowing the states that created it.
Three men who remained until the end, George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph, refused to sign the finished Constitution.
From the National Archives:
Creating the Parchment Document
The state delegates approved the draft of the Constitution on September 15, 1787. The signing was set for the very next Monday. Jacob Shallus, the assistant clerk for the Pennsylvania General Assembly, agreed to engross (copy in a fine, clear hand) the document. Over the course of about 40 hours, he created an accurate transcription of the draft. He was paid $30 for his efforts. On September 17, the document was ready for signing.
Signing the Constitution
Thirty-nine of the 42 men present signed the Constitution. George Washington was first, followed by each state delegation descending from north to south. George Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph refused to sign because the Constitution lacked a bill of rights. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams did not sign because they were on diplomatic missions in Europe during the convention.
The achievement wasn't perfection.
It was persistence.
Men with large egos and deeply held interests kept returning to the table. They proposed ideas that failed, they accepted compromises they disliked, they crossed out language they had previously supported, and they changed their minds when the government on paper looked wrong.
Then they sent the result to the states and asked Americans to argue about it all over again.
Washington's marked-up pages are valuable because they remove some of the marble from the Founders.
They show men working.
America could've had a seven-year president elected by Congress and called "His Excellency." It could've had a Constitution beginning with a roll call of states rather than three of the most important words in American history.
Instead, the delegates kept revising.
The Constitution we inherited became possible partly because the Founders were willing to abandon the Constitution they almost gave us.
