The United States Constitution has been amended 27 times since it was ratified in 1788. The first ten, ratified together in 1791, make up the Bill of Rights. The other seventeen came one at a time over the next two centuries, and together the 27 amendments to the US Constitution cover everything from free speech and the abolition of slavery to presidential term limits and congressional pay raises. What follows is a plain-English tour of each one, grouped by what it actually does.
The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1 Through 10
Several states refused to ratify the Constitution without a written guarantee of individual liberties. The first ten amendments were the answer, ratified together in 1791. Originally they only restrained the federal government. After the Fourteenth Amendment arrived in 1868, courts began applying most of these protections to state and local governments too, through a doctrine known as incorporation.1Constitution Annotated. Overview of Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
First Amendment: Speech, Religion, Press, Assembly, Petition
Bars Congress from establishing an official religion, interfering with religious practice, restricting free speech or the press, or blocking peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government.2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – First Amendment It is the most frequently litigated amendment in the Constitution.
Second Amendment: Right to Bear Arms
Protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, with an opening clause referencing a well-regulated militia as necessary to the security of a free state.3Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Second Amendment The Supreme Court confirmed in 2008 that this protects an individual right to own firearms.
Third Amendment: Quartering of Soldiers
Bars the government from housing soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the owner’s consent.4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Third Amendment It rarely appears in modern litigation.
Fourth Amendment: Searches and Seizures
Prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Police generally need a warrant based on probable cause before they can search your home, your belongings, or your person.5Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourth Amendment Courts have extended this protection to cell phone location data and electronic communications.
Fifth Amendment: Due Process and Self-Incrimination
Packs several protections into one provision. It requires a grand jury indictment for serious federal crimes, bars trying someone twice for the same offense, protects against compelled self-incrimination, guarantees due process before the government can take life, liberty, or property, and requires fair compensation when private property is taken for public use.6Cornell Law Institute. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment “Pleading the Fifth” invokes the self-incrimination clause.
Sixth Amendment: Rights of the Accused
Guarantees criminal defendants a speedy and public trial before an impartial jury, the right to know the charges, the ability to confront witnesses, and the right to a lawyer.7Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixth Amendment
Seventh Amendment: Civil Jury Trials
Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where more than twenty dollars is at stake. That threshold has never been adjusted for inflation.8Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventh Amendment
Eighth Amendment: Bail, Fines, and Punishment
Prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.9Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighth Amendment Courts have used it to strike down disproportionate sentences and to set limits on prison conditions.
Ninth Amendment: Rights Not Listed
Clarifies that the rights written into the Constitution are not the only rights people have.10Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Ninth Amendment
Tenth Amendment: Powers Reserved to States
Any authority the Constitution does not hand to the federal government stays with the states or the people.11Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment Together with the Ninth, it acts as a reminder that federal power is limited while individual rights are broad.
Reconstruction Amendments: Ending Slavery and Establishing Equality
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified in the five years after the Civil War and reshaped the relationship between individuals, states, and the federal government.
Thirteenth Amendment: Abolition of Slavery
Ratified in 1865, it abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, with a narrow exception allowing it as punishment for a crime.12Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment It also gave Congress the power to pass enforcement laws.
Fourteenth Amendment: Citizenship, Due Process, Equal Protection
Ratified in 1868. It grants citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States, bars states from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process, and requires states to provide equal protection under the law.13Constitution Annotated. Citizenship Clause Doctrine Nearly every major civil rights case in American history, from school desegregation to marriage equality, has turned on this amendment.
Fifteenth Amendment: Voting Rights Regardless of Race
Ratified in 1870, it prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.14Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment In practice, many states spent the next century inventing workarounds like literacy tests and poll taxes.
Amendments That Expanded the Right to Vote
The Constitution originally left voter qualifications almost entirely to the states. Four amendments beyond the Fifteenth chipped away at the barriers.
Nineteenth Amendment: Women’s Suffrage
Ratified in 1920, it prohibits denying the right to vote based on sex.15Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment It roughly doubled the eligible electorate.
Twenty-Third Amendment: D.C. Presidential Electors
Ratified in 1961, it gave residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote in presidential elections through electors, capped at the number held by the least populous state.16Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Third Amendment In practice that means three electoral votes. D.C. residents still lack voting representation in Congress.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment: End of Poll Taxes
Ratified in 1964, it eliminated poll taxes in federal elections.17Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Voting Age of 18
Ratified in 1971, it lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.18Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment The driving argument: if eighteen-year-olds were old enough to be drafted, they were old enough to vote.
Amendments That Changed How Government Works
Several amendments do not create rights or expand the electorate. They fix problems in the way federal government operates.
Eleventh Amendment: Suing States in Federal Court
Ratified in 1795, it strips federal courts of the power to hear lawsuits filed against a state by citizens of another state or by foreign citizens.19Constitution Annotated. Eleventh Amendment – Suits Against States It was a direct response to an early Supreme Court decision that had allowed exactly that.
Twelfth Amendment: Separate Ballots for President and Vice President
Ratified in 1804. Under the original system, each elector cast two votes for President and the runner-up became Vice President, which produced a disastrous tie in 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The Twelfth Amendment requires electors to cast separate ballots for President and Vice President.20Constitution Annotated. Overview of Twelfth Amendment, Election of President If no presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the House picks the President from the top three vote-getters, with each state delegation casting one vote.21Congressional Research Service. Contingent Election of the President and Vice President by Congress
Seventeenth Amendment: Direct Election of Senators
Ratified in 1913, it moved the selection of senators from state legislatures to direct popular vote.22Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment The old system had grown plagued by corruption and deadlocks that left Senate seats vacant for months.
Twentieth Amendment: Shorter Transition Period
Ratified in 1933. It moved the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20 and set the start of new congressional terms for January 3.23Cornell Law Institute. U.S. Constitution – 20th Amendment It also spells out that if a president-elect dies before inauguration, the vice president-elect becomes president.
Twenty-Second Amendment: Presidential Term Limits
Ratified in 1951, it limits a person to being elected president no more than twice. Someone who steps into the presidency mid-term and serves more than two years of their predecessor’s term can be elected only once on their own.24Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment It was a response to Franklin Roosevelt winning four consecutive elections.
Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Presidential Vacancy and Disability
Ratified in 1967. It confirms that the vice president becomes president when the president dies, resigns, or is removed. It lets the president nominate a new vice president, subject to confirmation by both chambers of Congress, when that office is vacant. It allows a president to temporarily transfer power to the vice president by written declaration, which has happened for planned medical procedures. And it lets the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet declare the president unable to serve, with Congress deciding any dispute and a two-thirds vote in both chambers needed to keep the president from returning to power.25Constitution Annotated. Overview of Twenty-Fifth Amendment, Presidential Vacancy and Disability That last provision, Section 4, has never been invoked.
Twenty-Seventh Amendment: Congressional Pay
Prevents any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of representatives.26Constitution Annotated. Overview of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, Congressional Compensation James Madison first proposed it in 1789 as part of the Bill of Rights package. It sat unratified for 203 years before a college student’s research paper sparked a state-level campaign that finished the job in 1992.
Income Tax, Prohibition, and Repeal
Sixteenth Amendment: Federal Income Tax
Ratified in 1913, it authorized Congress to levy an income tax without dividing the revenue among states based on population.27Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment The Supreme Court had previously struck down a federal income tax. This amendment gave the federal government its most durable source of revenue.
Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition
Ratified in 1919, it banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages nationwide.28Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighteenth Amendment Enforcement proved nearly impossible, and Prohibition fueled organized crime.
Twenty-First Amendment: Repeal of Prohibition
Ratified in 1933, it repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and returned alcohol regulation to the states.29Constitution Annotated. Overview of Twenty-First Amendment, Repeal of Prohibition It is the only amendment that exists solely to undo a previous one, and the Eighteenth is the only amendment ever repealed.
How Amendments Get Added, and What Didn’t Make It
Every one of the 27 followed the same route: Congress proposed the amendment by a two-thirds vote in both chambers, and three-fourths of the states (currently 38 of 50) ratified it. The Archivist of the United States then certifies the amendment as part of the Constitution.30National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process The alternative path in Article V, a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, has never been used.31Constitution Annotated. Article V – Amending the Constitution
Six proposed amendments cleared Congress but were never ratified by enough states: the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, the Titles of Nobility Amendment, the Corwin Amendment, the Child Labor Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, and the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment. The Equal Rights Amendment remains the most contested. It was proposed in 1972 with a seven-year deadline, fell three states short by 1979, and did not gain the final ratifications before an extended 1982 deadline. Three more states ratified decades later, but the Archivist has declined to certify the amendment on the grounds that the deadline had already passed.32National Archives. Statement on the Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Process For now, the count still stands at 27.