He was elected as the youngest of the 88 delegates to the state constitutional convention that began on May 11, 1835, and was appointed to a committee of 19 charged with drafting the constitution in an attempt to speed up its slow progress over its first four days. He was one of an even smaller group of five delegates who worked in secret to write a draft that was presented on May 19 to the rest of the convention, which then used it as the basis for further work. Gidley was one of two votes against the final version of the proposed constitution, on the grounds that it granted voting rights to non-citizens, which he opposed.
