All 27 Constitutional Amendment Rights: Bill of Rights to Prohibition

There are 27 amendments to the United States Constitution. The first ten, ratified together in 1791, form the Bill of Rights and protect core individual liberties. The remaining 17, added over more than two centuries, have expanded voting rights, restructured parts of the federal government, and responded to national crises. Below is a complete list of all 27 constitutional amendments, followed by a closer look at what each group of them actually does.

Quick List of All 27 Amendments

First Amendment (1791) — Protects freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government.
Second Amendment (1791) — Protects the right to keep and bear arms, tied in the text to a well-regulated militia.
Third Amendment (1791) — Prohibits the government from housing soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the owner’s consent.
Fourth Amendment (1791) — Guards against unreasonable searches and seizures and generally requires warrants based on probable cause.
Fifth Amendment (1791) — Provides the right against self-incrimination, protection from double jeopardy, and due process before the government can take life, liberty, or property.
Sixth Amendment (1791) — Guarantees a speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, notice of charges, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to counsel in criminal cases.
Seventh Amendment (1791) — Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeds twenty dollars.
Eighth Amendment (1791) — Prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.
Ninth Amendment (1791) — Clarifies that people hold rights beyond those specifically listed in the Constitution.
Tenth Amendment (1791) — Reserves to the states or the people any powers not given to the federal government or prohibited to the states.
Eleventh Amendment — Restricts private citizens from suing a state in federal court, reinforcing state sovereign immunity.
Twelfth Amendment (1804) — Requires electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president.
Thirteenth Amendment — Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
Fourteenth Amendment — Defined national citizenship and required states to provide due process and equal protection of the laws.
Fifteenth Amendment — Prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Sixteenth Amendment (1913) — Authorized the federal income tax.
Seventeenth Amendment (1913) — Transferred the election of U.S. senators from state legislatures to the voters directly.
Eighteenth Amendment (1920) — Banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages nationwide.
Nineteenth Amendment (1920) — Prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex.
Twentieth Amendment (1933) — Moved the start of presidential terms to January 20 and congressional terms to January 3.
Twenty-First Amendment (1933) — Repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended Prohibition.
Twenty-Second Amendment (1951) — Limits presidents to two elected terms.
Twenty-Third Amendment — Gave residents of Washington, D.C., electors in the Electoral College.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964) — Outlawed poll taxes in federal elections.
Twenty-Fifth Amendment (1967) — Set the process for presidential succession, vice-presidential vacancies, and presidential disability.
Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971) — Lowered the voting age to eighteen.
Twenty-Seventh Amendment (1992) — Delays any change in congressional pay until after the next House election.

The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1 Through 10

The first ten amendments were ratified together in 1791 to guarantee individual liberties that many states demanded before agreeing to the new federal system.

The First Amendment protects five liberties at once. The government cannot establish an official religion or interfere with how people practice their faith, cannot censor speech or the press, and cannot stop people from gathering peacefully or formally asking the government to address their concerns.¹ None of these protections is absolute; certain categories of speech, such as true threats and incitement to imminent violence, fall outside coverage.

The Second Amendment ties the right to keep and bear arms to the concept of a well-regulated militia.² In 2008, District of Columbia v. Heller established that this is an individual right to possess firearms for lawful purposes like self-defense in the home.³ The 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen requires the government to justify gun regulations by showing they are consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.⁴

The Third Amendment prohibits the government from forcing you to house soldiers in your home during peacetime without your consent.⁵ It is the least-litigated provision in the Bill of Rights.

The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. Law enforcement generally needs a warrant based on probable cause that describes the specific place to be searched and the items or people to be seized.⁶⁷⁸⁹

The Fifth Amendment gives you the right against self-incrimination, protection from being tried twice for the same offense, and the guarantee of due process before the government can take your life, liberty, or property.¹⁰ Miranda warnings come from this amendment: before questioning someone in custody, police must inform them of the right to remain silent, that anything said can be used in court, the right to have an attorney present, and the right to an appointed attorney if they cannot afford one.¹¹

The Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal defendants a speedy, public trial before an impartial jury, along with the right to know the charges, confront prosecution witnesses, and have counsel.¹² Under Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), defendants who cannot afford a lawyer must be provided one at government expense.¹³

The Seventh Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeds twenty dollars.¹⁴ That dollar threshold is essentially a formality today.

The Eighth Amendment limits punishment. Bail cannot be excessive, fines cannot be disproportionately large, and punishments cannot be cruel and unusual.¹⁵ Courts have used this amendment to bar executing people with intellectual disabilities and defendants who committed their crimes as juveniles.¹⁶

The Ninth Amendment makes clear that the rights named in the Constitution are not the only ones people hold.¹⁷ The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states or to the people any power not given to the federal government and not prohibited to the states, which is why states handle most criminal law, education, and public health policy on their own terms.¹⁸

The Reconstruction Amendments: 13, 14, and 15

Ratified after the Civil War, these three amendments fundamentally reshaped American law.

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for someone convicted of a crime.¹⁹

The Fourteenth Amendment did several things at once. It defined national citizenship: anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen. It prohibited states from denying any person life, liberty, or property without due process of law. And it required states to give every person equal protection under the law.²⁰ The Supreme Court has also used the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to apply most Bill of Rights protections to state and local governments, a process called incorporation.²¹ Section 3 of the amendment bars anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection from holding federal or state office; in 2024, Trump v. Anderson held that only Congress, not individual states, may enforce this against candidates for federal office.²²

The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.²³ States circumvented it for decades through literacy tests and grandfather clauses until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Amendments That Expanded the Right to Vote

Four amendments beyond the Fifteenth broadened who could participate in elections.

The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex.²⁴

The Twenty-Third Amendment gave residents of Washington, D.C., electors in the Electoral College, capped at the number held by the least populous state.²⁵

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, outlawed poll taxes in federal elections.²⁶

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.²⁷

Structural Amendments That Changed How Government Works

Several amendments reshape how the federal government operates rather than protecting individual rights.

The Eleventh Amendment restricts the ability of private citizens to sue a state in federal court.²⁸

The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, fixed a flaw in the Electoral College by requiring separate ballots for president and vice president.²⁹

The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, authorized the federal income tax.³⁰ That same year, the Seventeenth Amendment transferred the election of senators from state legislatures directly to voters.³¹

The Twentieth Amendment, ratified in 1933, moved the start of presidential terms to January 20 and congressional terms to January 3, shortening the “lame duck” period.³² The Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits presidents to two elected terms; a person who has served more than two years of someone else’s term can be elected only once on their own.³³

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, sets the process for presidential succession and disability. If the presidency becomes vacant, the vice president takes over. If the vice presidency becomes vacant, the president nominates a replacement, subject to majority confirmation by both chambers of Congress. Section 4 allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare a president unable to serve; if the president disputes it, Congress has 21 days to decide by a two-thirds vote of both chambers.³⁴

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment has an unusual history. Proposed in 1789 as part of the original batch of amendments, it was not ratified until 1992. It prevents any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of the House of Representatives.³⁵

Prohibition and Its Repeal

The Eighteenth Amendment, which took effect in January 1920, banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages nationwide. It lasted nearly 14 years before the Twenty-First Amendment repealed it on December 5, 1933.³⁶ The Twenty-First is the only amendment ever ratified to repeal a previous one, and the only one ratified through state conventions rather than state legislatures.

How an Amendment Gets Added

Article V of the Constitution lays out two paths for proposing an amendment and two for ratifying one. The common route requires two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve the proposal. Alternatively, two-thirds of state legislatures can call a national convention to propose amendments, though this method has never been used.³⁷

Ratification requires either approval by three-fourths of state legislatures or by three-fourths of specially convened state ratifying conventions, with Congress deciding which method applies. The high bar for both proposal and ratification explains why only 27 amendments have made it through in more than 230 years.

1
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – First Amendment
2
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Second Amendment
3
Library of Congress. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
4
Supreme Court of the United States. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, No. 20-843 (2022)
5
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Third Amendment
6
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourth Amendment
7
Justia. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)
8
Justia. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014)
9
Supreme Court of the United States. Carpenter v. United States, No. 16-402 (2018)
10
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment
11
Justia. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
12
Congress.gov. Sixth Amendment
13
Justia. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
14
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventh Amendment
15
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighth Amendment
16
Legal Information Institute. Excessive Bail Prohibition – Current Doctrine
17
Congress.gov. Overview of Ninth Amendment, Unenumerated Rights
18
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment
19
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment
20
Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Amendment XIV
21
Congress.gov. Overview of Incorporation of the Bill of Rights
22
Congress.gov. Overview of the Insurrection Clause (Disqualification Clause)
23
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment
24
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment
25
Congress.gov. Twenty-Third Amendment – District of Columbia Electors
26
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Fourth Amendment
27
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment
28
National Archives. The Constitution – Amendments 11-27
29
Congress.gov. Early Amendments (Eleventh and Twelfth Amendments)
30
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment
31
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment
32
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twentieth Amendment
33
Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
34
Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Amendment XXV
35
Congress.gov. Twenty-Seventh Amendment
36
Congress.gov. Ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment
37
Congress.gov. Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution