Constitutional/Federal Convention - May 25 to September 17, 1787.
Of the 74 delegates who were chosen to attend the Constitutional Convention, only 55 attended. Rhode Island did not participate. (The state ratified the Constitution on May 29, 1790.)
Attendees By State (* did not sign the Constitution)
CONNECTICUT: William S. Johnson, Roger Sherman, Oliver Ellsworth (Elsworth)*.
DELAWARE: George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom.
GEORGIA: William Few, Abraham Baldwin William Houstoun*, William L. Pierce*.
MARYLAND: James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll, Luther Martin*, John F. Mercer*.
MASSACHUSETTS: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, Elbridge Gerry*, Caleb Strong*.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.
NEW JERSEY: William Livingston, David Brearly (Brearley), William Paterson (Patterson), Jonathan Dayton (youngest), William C. Houston*.
NEW YORK: Alexander Hamilton, John Lansing, Jr.*, Robert Yates*.
NORTH CAROLINA: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson, William R. Davie*, Alexander Martin*.
PENNSYLVANIA: Benjamin Franklin (oldest), Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons (FitzSimons, Fitzsimmons), Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris.
SOUTH CAROLINA: John Rutledge, Charles C. Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler.
RHODE ISLAND:
VIRGINIA: John Blair, James Madison, Jr., George Washington, George Mason*, James McClurg*, Edmund J. Randolph*, George Wythe*.
WHO DECLINED TO ATTEND?
GEORGIA: George Watson, Nathaniel Pendleton.
MARYLAND: Gabriel Duvall, Robert Hansen Harrison, Thomas Stone, Charles Caroll, Thomas Sim Lee.
MASSACHUSETTS: Francis Dana. (John Adams was the foreign minister in Great Britain at the time.)
NEW HAMPSHIRE: John Pickering, Benjamin West.
NEW JERSEY: Abraham Clark, John Neilson.
NORTH CAROLINA: Richard Coswell, Willie Jones.
RHODE ISLAND: Delegates from Rhode Island did not attend the Constitutional Convention because they opposed the idea of a strong federal government.
SOUTH CAROLINA: Henry Laurens.
VIRGINIA: Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, Patrick Henry. (Thomas Jefferson was a foreign minister in France at the time.)