Omar Bennett
The United States Constitution has been amended 27 times since it was put into operation on March 4, 1789. The first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified on December 15, 1791. Since then, there have been 18 additional amendments, with the most recent being the Twenty-seventh Amendment, which was ratified in 1992. The process of amending the Constitution is outlined in Article V of the original document, and approximately 11,848 proposals to amend it have been introduced in Congress as of January 3, 2019.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Total number of amendments proposed | 33 |
| Number of amendments ratified | 27 |
| First 10 amendments | Ratified on December 15, 1791, and form the Bill of Rights |
| Number of amendments in the Bill of Rights | 10 |
| Number of proposals to amend the Constitution since 1789 | Approximately 11,848 |
| Average number of proposals during each two-year term of Congress | 200 |
| Amendment with the power to repeal an earlier one | Twenty-first Amendment (1933) |
| Amendment that repeals an earlier one | Eighteenth Amendment (ratified in 1919) |
| Topic of the Eighteenth Amendment | Prohibition of alcohol |
| Amendment prohibiting anyone from being elected President more than twice | XXII |
| Amendment regarding Congressional Compensation | Twenty-Seventh Amendment |
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What You'll Learn
The Bill of Rights
The United States Constitution has 27 amendments, with the first 10 being ratified simultaneously to form the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791, and outlines the fundamental freedoms and rights of US citizens.
The first Congress of the United States initially proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution on September 25, 1789. However, only 10 of these were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures, with Article 2 being ratified much later in 1992 as the 27th Amendment, and Article 1 never being ratified.
- The freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly
- The right to petition the government for a redress of grievances
- The right to keep and bear arms
- Freedom from the quartering of soldiers during peace time
- Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures
- Rights regarding criminal prosecutions and due process of law
- Rights in civil trials
- Protection from excessive bail, fines, and cruel and unusual punishments
- Unenumerated rights, where citizens retain rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution
- Rights reserved to the states and the people, where powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved for the states and the people
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The Eighteenth Amendment
Shortly after the amendment was ratified, Congress passed the Volstead Act to provide for the federal enforcement of Prohibition. The Volstead Act set the starting date for nationwide prohibition as January 17, 1920, the earliest date allowed by the Eighteenth Amendment. The Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act were controversial because they empowered the federal government to police activities that implicated individual social habits and morality—a role traditionally led by state and local governments.
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The Twenty-First Amendment
Litigation concerning the Twenty-First Amendment has often focused on the meaning of its second section and the scope of state authority under it. For example, in 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996), the Court held that states could not use the Twenty-First Amendment to abridge freedom of speech protections under the First Amendment. In another case, Granholm v. Heald (2005), the Court ruled that the Twenty-First Amendment does not overrule the Dormant Commerce Clause with respect to alcohol sales, requiring states to treat in-state and out-of-state wineries equally.
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The Twenty-Seventh Amendment
The proposed amendment was largely forgotten until 1982, when Gregory Watson, a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote a paper for a government class in which he claimed that the amendment was still pending ratification. This sparked a renewed interest in the amendment. Finally, on May 20, 1992, the Archivist of the United States, Don W. Wilson, certified that the amendment had been ratified, and Congress declared it legally valid, making it a part of the Constitution.
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The Reconstruction Amendments
The 13th Amendment, which was proposed in 1864 and ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The 14th Amendment, proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law for all people. It defines all people born in the United States as citizens and requires due process of law. The 15th Amendment, proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870, prohibits federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, colour, or previous condition of servitude. However, it left open other forms of disenfranchisement, including those based on sex, property ownership, literacy, and payment of a poll tax.
While the Reconstruction Amendments promised significant changes, their impact was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions in the late 19th century. Jim Crow laws, enacted in some states from 1876 onwards, restricted the rights of African Americans. It was not until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, that the full benefits of the Reconstruction Amendments were realised.
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Frequently asked questions
There have been 27 amendments to the US Constitution.
The first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, were ratified simultaneously on December 15, 1791.
To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 states since 1959). This can be done through either the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or state ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states.
Notable amendments include the Eighteenth Amendment, which established the prohibition of alcohol, and the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. Other significant amendments include the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments, and the Twenty-seventh Amendment, which addresses congressional compensation.
