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, thousands of proposals to amend the Constitution have been introduced in Congress, with approximately 11,848 proposals as of January 3, 2019. The process of amending the Constitution involves a two-step process, with amendments needing to be properly proposed and ratified before becoming operative.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Total number of amendments proposed | 33 |
| Number of amendments ratified | 27 |
| First 10 amendments | Ratified on December 15, 1791 |
| First amendment | Passed by Congress on March 4, 1794, and ratified on February 7, 1795 |
| Second amendment | Passed by Congress on December 9, 1803, and ratified on June 15, 1804 |
| Thirteenth amendment | Passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868 |
| Fourteenth amendment | Passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 9, 1868 |
| Sixteenth amendment | Passed by Congress on July 2, 1909, and ratified on February 3, 1913 |
| Seventeenth amendment | Passed by Congress on May 13, 1912, and ratified on April 8, 1913 |
| Twenty-first amendment | Ratified in 1933 |
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What You'll Learn
The Bill of Rights
The American Constitution has been amended 27 times, beginning with the Bill of Rights, which comprises the first 10 amendments. The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791, and it outlines specific guarantees of personal freedoms and limitations on the government's power.
James Madison, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time, initially opposed the idea of a bill of rights, arguing that the Constitution did not grant the federal government the power to take away people's rights. However, he eventually agreed to support and author the Bill of Rights to secure ratification. He included the 9th Amendment, which states that the absence of a right from the Bill of Rights does not mean that it does not exist.
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The 18th Amendment
The Volstead Act defined liquor, wine, and beer as intoxicating liquors and prohibited their sale, manufacture, and distribution. However, the Act was largely unsuccessful, as it was unable to prevent the mass distribution of alcoholic beverages and inadvertently caused a massive increase in organized crime. Despite the efforts of law enforcement agencies, entire illegal economies flourished, including bootlegging, speakeasies, and distilling operations.
Public sentiment turned against Prohibition by the late 1920s, and the Great Depression further hastened its demise. Opponents argued that the ban on alcohol denied jobs to the unemployed and revenue to the government. In 1932, Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt ran on a platform that included repealing the 18th Amendment, and his victory led to the end of Prohibition. On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and ending federal prohibition.
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The 21st Amendment
The amendment also addressed the production, consumption, transportation, and distribution of alcohol. Production refers to the act of making alcohol, consumption refers to drinking alcohol, sale means selling alcohol at a bar, restaurant, or liquor store, transportation means delivering alcohol, and distribution refers to the transfer of alcohol from one person or party to another.
The end of prohibition was thought to be responsible for the creation of half a million jobs. President Roosevelt issued a proclamation following the passage of the amendment, stating:
> "I trust in the good sense of the American people that they will not bring upon themselves the curse of excessive use of intoxicating liquors to the detriment of health, morals and social integrity. The objective we seek through a national policy is the education of every citizen towards a greater temperance throughout the nation."
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The Reconstruction Amendments
The Thirteenth Amendment, proposed in 1864 and ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The Thirteenth Amendment irrevocably abolished slavery throughout the United States.
The Fourteenth Amendment, proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons. It defines all people born in the United States as citizens, requires due process of law, and equal protection for all people. The Fourteenth Amendment transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property owners, into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to substantive freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government.
The Fifteenth Amendment, proposed in 1869 and ratified in 1870, prohibits federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, colour, or previous condition of servitude". It was the third and final Reconstruction Amendment.
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Ratification
The process of amending the American Constitution is detailed in Article Five of the United States Constitution. This two-step process involves first proposing an amendment and then sending it to the states for ratification. An amendment can be proposed by the U.S. Congress, requiring a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, or by a national convention called by Congress upon application from two-thirds of state legislatures.
Once an amendment is proposed, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 states since 1959) to become part of the Constitution. This can be achieved through ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or by state ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states. The latter method has only been used once, for the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment (ratified in 1919) and ended the prohibition of alcohol.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified on December 15, 1791. These amendments were proposed by the First Congress of the United States on September 25, 1789, and guaranteed various freedoms and rights, including freedom of religion, speech, and the press, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.
Since the Constitution came into operation on March 4, 1789, there have been approximately 11,000-12,000 proposals to amend it, with 33 amendments officially proposed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Of these, 27 amendments have been successfully ratified by the required number of states and are now part of the Constitution. The last amendment to be ratified was the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 1992, which prohibited mid-term changes in compensation for members of Congress.
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Frequently asked questions
The first 10 amendments to the American Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified on December 15, 1791.
There have been 27 amendments to the American Constitution.
Approximately 11,848 proposals to amend the Constitution have been introduced in Congress since 1789.
12 amendments to the Constitution were proposed in 1789, 10 of which were ratified.
The Twenty-first Amendment, ratified in 1933, repealed the Eighteenth Amendment.
