Episode 2 of 2

Date Set for the Constitution to Become Operative

When: September 13, 1788
Where: United States in Congress Assembled
Part of: U.S. Congress Passes Act for First Presidential Election

The same congressional action set March 4, 1789, as the date the Constitution would become operative and the new Congress would convene.

Additionally, the date for the Constitution to become operative was set for March 4, 1789, when the new Congress of the United States should convene. This provision accompanied the election-timeline act of September 13, 1788, completing the schedule for the transition from the Confederation period to the new constitutional government.

Sources

Congress of the Confederation Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-16

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.