Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Colorado

Re: United States of America the 12th??

The complete sentence reads "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth."

I agree that the writing is not as clear as it should be. What the last part means is that it was written during the twelfth year of America's independence, which ran from July 4, 1786 to July 3, 1787.

Re: United States of America the 12th??

I want to correct an error in my prior response. I wrote that "the twelfth year of America's independence . . . ran from July 4, 1786 to July 3, 1787." It actually ran from July 4, 1787 to July 3, 1788.