All 27 constitutional amendments in order, from the First Amendment ratified in 1791 to the Twenty-Seventh Amendment ratified in 1992, cover individual rights, federal structure, voting eligibility, presidential succession, and taxation. The first ten were ratified together as the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791. The remaining seventeen were added one at a time over the next two centuries.
The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1 Through 10 (1791)
Ratified as a single package on December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights set limits on federal power and reserved authority to the states and the people. States had demanded these protections as a condition of accepting the new federal government.
First Amendment
Prevents Congress from establishing an official religion or interfering with religious practice, and protects freedom of speech, freedom of the press, peaceable assembly, and the right to petition the government. The protections are broad but not absolute. The Supreme Court has recognized narrow categories that fall outside them, including direct incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats of violence, and obscenity.
Second Amendment
Protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, with text tying that right to the necessity of a well-regulated militia. The Supreme Court has confirmed this as an individual right, not limited to militia service. In 2022 the Court held that firearms regulations must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation to survive a constitutional challenge.
Third Amendment
Prohibits the government from housing soldiers in private homes during peacetime without the owner’s consent. Even in wartime, any quartering must follow procedures set by law. It is one of the least-litigated provisions in the Constitution.
Fourth Amendment
Protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government agents generally need a warrant supported by probable cause, and that warrant must specifically describe the place to be searched and what is being sought.
Fifth Amendment
Requires a grand jury indictment before someone can be tried for a serious federal crime, bans trying a person twice for the same offense, and protects against forced self-incrimination. It guarantees that no one can lose life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and it requires the government to pay fair compensation when it takes private property for public use.
Sixth Amendment
Guarantees a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury in criminal cases. Defendants have the right to know the charges against them, to confront witnesses, and to the assistance of a lawyer.
Seventh Amendment
Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeds twenty dollars.
Eighth Amendment
Bans excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.
Ninth Amendment
Makes clear that the rights listed in the Constitution are not the only rights people hold. A right not specifically mentioned still exists.
Tenth Amendment
Reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the states or to the people. Federal authority is limited to what the Constitution actually authorizes.
Early Structural Fixes: Amendments 11 and 12
Eleventh Amendment (1795)
Restricts the ability of individuals to sue a state in federal court. It was a direct response to the Supreme Court’s 1793 decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, which had allowed such suits.
Twelfth Amendment (1804)
Requires electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president. Under the original system, electors cast two votes for president and the runner-up became vice president, a design that produced deadlock when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the 1800 election.
The Reconstruction Amendments: 13 Through 15
Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States and any territory under its control. It contains one exception: involuntary servitude can still be imposed as punishment for a crime after a conviction.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, overriding the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. It prohibited states from denying any person due process of law or equal protection of the laws. Its equal protection clause and due process guarantee have become the basis for civil rights litigation ranging from school desegregation to marriage equality.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
Prohibited denying or restricting the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. States circumvented it for nearly a century through poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics, and full enforcement did not arrive until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Progressive Era Amendments: 16 Through 19
Sixteenth Amendment (1913)
Authorized Congress to collect an income tax without dividing the revenue proportionally among states based on population.
Seventeenth Amendment (1913)
Changed how senators are chosen. Before ratification, state legislatures picked their state’s senators; the amendment handed that power directly to voters in each state through popular election.
Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
Banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. It was the first amendment to restrict personal conduct on a national scale and was enforced through the Volstead Act.
Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
Prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex. It was the culmination of a movement building since the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and roughly doubled the eligible electorate.
Modern Amendments: 20 Through 27
Twentieth Amendment (1933)
Shortened the period between Election Day and the start of new terms. It moved the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20 and set the start of congressional sessions at January 3.
Twenty-First Amendment (1933)
Repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, ending national Prohibition. It is the only amendment that cancels a previous one, and the only amendment ratified by state conventions rather than state legislatures. It also gave states the authority to regulate alcohol within their borders.
Twenty-Second Amendment (1951)
Caps the presidency at two elected terms. A person who has served more than two years of someone else’s term can only be elected once on their own. It formalized the two-term tradition George Washington established and that Franklin Roosevelt broke by winning four elections.
Twenty-Third Amendment (1961)
Gave residents of Washington, D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections by granting the District a number of electors equal to what it would have as a state, but never more than the least populous state. In practice, three electoral votes.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964)
Banned poll taxes in federal elections. Several states had used these fees to keep low-income citizens, particularly Black voters in the South, from voting. The Supreme Court extended the ban to state elections in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966).
Twenty-Fifth Amendment (1967)
Addressed presidential succession and disability. Section 1 confirms the vice president becomes president when the office is vacated. Section 2 creates a process for filling a vice-presidential vacancy, requiring the president to nominate a replacement whom both chambers of Congress must confirm; it was used for Gerald Ford and then Nelson Rockefeller in the 1970s. Sections 3 and 4 let a president voluntarily transfer power to the vice president in writing, and allow the vice president together with a majority of the cabinet to declare the president unable to serve. If the president disputes that finding, Congress decides, and a two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to keep the vice president as acting president.
Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971)
Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 for all elections. The driving argument was that 18-year-olds old enough to be drafted and sent to Vietnam were old enough to vote. It was ratified in just over three months, faster than any other amendment.
Twenty-Seventh Amendment (1992)
Prevents any change to congressional salaries from taking effect until after the next election of representatives. Lawmakers who vote themselves a raise cannot benefit from it during their current term. Originally proposed in 1789 as part of the batch that became the Bill of Rights, it fell short of ratification then. A college student revived the effort in 1982, and it was ratified on May 7, 1992, more than 202 years after it was first proposed.
How an Amendment Gets Added
Article V lays out two paths to propose an amendment. Congress can propose one if both the House and Senate approve it by a two-thirds vote, or two-thirds of state legislatures can call a national convention to propose amendments. Every amendment so far has come through the congressional route; no national convention has ever been called for this purpose. A proposed amendment does not require the President’s signature.
Three-fourths of the states must then ratify the amendment. Congress decides whether state legislatures or specially called state conventions handle that vote. Once the threshold is met, the Archivist of the United States certifies the amendment and publishes the certification in the Federal Register.
How the Bill of Rights Reaches State Governments
The Bill of Rights originally restricted only the federal government. That began to change after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. Through selective incorporation, the Supreme Court has ruled case by case that most Bill of Rights protections are fundamental enough that the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process guarantee applies them against state governments too.
Today, nearly all of the Bill of Rights binds state and local governments. The notable exceptions are the Third Amendment (never formally incorporated against states), the Seventh Amendment’s civil jury trial guarantee, the Fifth Amendment’s grand jury requirement, and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. The rights most people encounter in daily life, including free speech, protection from unreasonable searches, the right to counsel, and protection against cruel punishment, apply whether the government actor is federal, state, or local.