When was the Constitution written?

Why this is the answer

The answer is a single year: 1787. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention wrote the Constitution that year, and the system of government it set up is the one still in place. USCIS names James Madison as its main writer; he later became the fourth president. The text is short, a preamble and seven articles, yet it lays down the principles of the government and the rights of citizens, and it has been amended 27 times since it was adopted. The difficulty is that several dates cling to the Constitution, and only one of them answers this question. 1776 belongs to the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution came eleven years later. Writing it was only the first step, because the document itself said it would take effect once conventions in nine states ratified it. Delaware went first, on December 7, 1787, and New Hampshire became the ninth state in 1788. The new government started on March 4, 1789, when Congress met for the first time, and George Washington was inaugurated that same year. By 1790 all thirteen states had ratified. Then came the Bill of Rights. Congress proposed twelve amendments on September 25, 1789, and ten of them were ratified on December 15, 1791, becoming the first ten amendments. One of the two left behind waited more than two centuries: it was ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment. So four years sit close together on the timeline: 1776, 1787, 1789 and 1791. If the officer asks when the Constitution was written, only 1787 is right. Answering 1789 because that is when the government began, or 1791 because you are thinking of the Bill of Rights, is a wrong answer even though both dates are real. Simple arithmetic helps here: start from the year everyone knows, 1776, add eleven, and you land on 1787.