Article V spells out two
methods for amending the Constitution. Congress may, by a two-thirds vote in
each house, propose a constitutional amendment. It must then be ratified by
three-quarters of the state legislatures or special state conventions, whichever
Congress specifies. State conventions have ratified a constitutional amendment
only once, the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. In the other method
of amending the Constitution, two-thirds of the states may call a special
constitutional convention. Amendments proposed by such a convention must then
be ratified by the legislatures in three-quarters of the states. This second
method has never been used; all amendments to date have originated in Congress.
The president has no legal role in amending the Constitution.
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In more than two centuries,
members of Congress have proposed thousands of amendments, but only 27 have
made it all the way to ratification. The first 12, including the Bill of
Rights, were in place by 1804. Not until 65 years later were the 13th, 14th,
and 15th amendments ratified, all as a direct consequence of the Civil War. The
13th abolished slavery. The 15th gave blacks the right to vote, though it was
not widely enforced until the 1960s. The 14th Amendment has often been called a
second constitutional revolution because it shifted power from the states to
the federal government, giving the federal government authority to enforce
individual rights against the states. This shift in power paved the way in the
long run for a vast expansion of civil rights and civil liberties.
In more than two centuries,
members of Congress have proposed thousands of amendments, but only 27 have
made it all the way to ratification. The first 12, including the Bill of
Rights, were in place by 1804. Not until 65 years later were the 13th, 14th,
and 15th amendments ratified, all as a direct consequence of the Civil War. The
13th abolished slavery. The 15th gave blacks the right to vote, though it was
not widely enforced until the 1960s. The 14th Amendment has often been called a
second constitutional revolution because it shifted power from the states to
the federal government, giving the federal government authority to enforce
individual rights against the states. This shift in power paved the way in the
long run for a vast expansion of civil rights and civil liberties.
Several later amendments
dealt with the right to vote. The 16th Amendment authorized the federal income
tax. Other amendments altered the method of electing the president, limited his
term of office, and set rules for presidential succession.
The most recent amendment,
the 27th, specifies that a change in congressional pay can go into effect only
after an intervening election for the House of Representatives. The amendment
took 203 years to be ratified. It was the second of 12 separate amendments,
then called articles, originally proposed in 1789. Articles III through XII
were ratified and renumbered as the Bill of Rights in 1791. (The first of the
12 original amendments would have increased the size of House districts.) But
through the 1790s only six states had ratified the pay amendment. Then, as
dissatisfaction with Congress mounted in the 1980s, the states rediscovered it;
and by 1992 the requisite 38 states had ratified it, putting it at last into
the Constitution.
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