There are 27 amendments to the US Constitution, ratified between 1791 and 1992. The first ten arrived together as the Bill of Rights; the remaining seventeen were added one at a time over the next two centuries to expand voting rights, restructure the federal government, abolish slavery, and fix problems the original document left open.
How an Amendment Becomes Part of the Constitution
Article V of the Constitution sets a high bar. A proposed amendment needs a two-thirds vote of the members present in both the House and the Senate, assuming a quorum, and then approval by three-fourths of the states — 38 out of 50 today.1National Archives. Article V, U.S. Constitution All 27 amendments have come through Congress. The alternative route, a convention called by two-thirds of state legislatures, has never been used.
The President has no formal role. Justice Chase wrote in 1798 that the President “has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution.”2Legal Information Institute. Hollingsworth v Virginia Once three-fourths of the states ratify, the Archivist of the United States certifies the amendment and publishes the proclamation in the Federal Register.3National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process
The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1 Through 10
The first ten amendments were ratified together in 1791. Several states had refused to ratify the original Constitution without written guarantees that the new federal government would not trample individual freedoms.4National Archives. The Bill of Rights: What Does it Say
First Amendment. Protects freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, along with the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government. It bars the government from establishing an official religion or punishing dissenting views.4National Archives. The Bill of Rights: What Does it Say
Second Amendment. Protects the right to keep and bear arms.
Third Amendment. Prohibits the government from forcing homeowners to house soldiers during peacetime. It was a direct response to British troops being quartered in colonists’ homes before the Revolution.
Fourth Amendment. Protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires that warrants be based on probable cause.5Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – Fourth Amendment
Fifth Amendment. Requires a grand jury indictment for serious federal crimes, bars trying a person twice for the same offense, prevents the government from forcing anyone to testify against themselves, and prohibits taking private property for public use without fair compensation.6Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment
Sixth Amendment. Guarantees a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, the right to confront witnesses, and the right to a lawyer.7Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – Sixth Amendment
Seventh Amendment. Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount at stake exceeds twenty dollars.
Eighth Amendment. Bans excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.
Ninth Amendment. States that the rights listed in the Constitution are not the only rights people have.
Tenth Amendment. Reserves every power not given to the federal government to the states or to the people.
One boundary worth flagging: the Bill of Rights originally restrained only the federal government. Through what is now called “selective incorporation,” the Supreme Court has held that most of these protections also bind state and local governments, applied through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process guarantee. The test is whether a right is both “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”8Legal Information Institute. Modern Doctrine on Selective Incorporation of Bill of Rights
The Eleventh and Twelfth Amendments
Eleventh Amendment (1795). Stripped federal courts of the power to hear lawsuits brought against a state by citizens of a different state or by foreign citizens.9Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – 11th Amendment It was a direct response to a Supreme Court ruling that had allowed such suits and established the principle of state sovereign immunity.
Twelfth Amendment (1804). Fixed a flaw in the Electoral College. Under the original system, each elector cast two votes for president, and the runner-up became vice president. That arrangement produced a deadlock in 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The Twelfth Amendment requires electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president.10Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – 12th Amendment
The Reconstruction Amendments: 13, 14, and 15
The three amendments ratified after the Civil War rewrote the relationship between the federal government, the states, and individual rights.
Thirteenth Amendment (1865). Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, with a narrow exception for punishment after a criminal conviction.11Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – 13th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment (1868). Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, barred states from denying anyone due process of law, and required every state to provide equal protection under its laws.12Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment It gave the federal government a constitutional basis for holding states accountable when they violated individual rights.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870). Prohibited denying any citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.13Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment In practice, southern states spent the next century using literacy tests, poll taxes, and other barriers to work around it, and later amendments and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were needed to enforce the promise.
Progressive Era Reforms: Amendments 16 Through 19
Four amendments between 1913 and 1920 reshaped how the government raises revenue, how senators are chosen, how alcohol was handled, and who gets to vote.
Sixteenth Amendment (1913). Gave Congress the power to tax income from any source without dividing the tax proportionally among the states by population.14Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment Before this, the Supreme Court had struck down a federal income tax.
Seventeenth Amendment (1913). Changed how U.S. senators are elected. State legislatures no longer chose them; voters did directly.15Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment
Eighteenth Amendment (1919). Banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol for drinking purposes.16Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – 18th Amendment It remains the only amendment to restrict personal behavior rather than define government power or protect individual rights.
Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Prohibited denying the right to vote based on sex.17Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment Its passage roughly doubled the eligible electorate.
Governance Changes: Amendments 20 Through 22
Twentieth Amendment (1933). Moved the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20 and the start of congressional terms to January 3, cutting the “lame duck” period roughly in half.18Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twentieth Amendment
Twenty-First Amendment (1933). Repealed Prohibition. It is the only amendment that cancels a previous one, and the only one ratified through state conventions rather than state legislatures. It also gave states the power to regulate alcohol within their own borders, which is why liquor laws still vary widely across the country.
Twenty-Second Amendment (1951). Limits any person to two terms as president. Someone who serves more than two years of another president’s term can only be elected once on their own.19Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment Franklin Roosevelt had broken the two-term tradition by winning four consecutive elections, and Congress responded with a formal cap.
Later Amendments: 23 Through 27
Twenty-Third Amendment (1961). Gave residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote in presidential elections. DC receives electoral votes equal to what it would get if it were a state, but no more than the least populous state.20U.S. Government Publishing Office. 23rd Amendment, U.S. Constitution In practice, that means three electoral votes.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964). Banned poll taxes in federal elections.21Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution – 24th Amendment Several states had used these fees to keep low-income citizens, disproportionately Black voters, from participating. The Supreme Court extended the ban to state and local elections two years later.
Twenty-Fifth Amendment (1967). Addressed presidential succession and disability. The vice president becomes president upon the president’s death, resignation, or removal. The amendment also creates a process for filling a vice presidential vacancy and allows the president to temporarily transfer power. If the vice president and a majority of cabinet officers declare the president unable to serve, the vice president takes over as acting president. The president can reclaim power by declaring the disability over, but if the vice president and cabinet disagree, Congress decides the matter by a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971). Lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen nationwide.22Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment The Vietnam-era argument was hard to counter: if eighteen-year-olds could be drafted, they were old enough to vote for the leaders sending them to war.
Twenty-Seventh Amendment (1992). Bars any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of Representatives.23Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Seventh Amendment It has the strangest backstory of any amendment. James Madison originally proposed it in 1789 as part of the batch that became the Bill of Rights, and it carried no ratification deadline. It sat dormant for nearly two centuries. In 1982, a college sophomore named Gregory Watson wrote a term paper arguing the amendment could still be ratified. His professor gave him a C. Watson spent years writing letters to state legislators, and one by one, states began ratifying. The amendment became law in 1992, 202 years and seven months after it was proposed. The university later changed Watson’s grade to an A.
Proposed Amendments That Never Made It
Not everything that gets called a constitutional amendment actually is one. Six amendments have cleared Congress but failed to be ratified by three-fourths of the states, and they are not part of the Constitution.24Justia. Proposed Amendments Not Ratified by the States The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (1789) would have set a formula for House seats based on population. The Titles of Nobility Amendment (1810) would have stripped citizenship from anyone accepting a foreign title of nobility without congressional consent. The Corwin Amendment (1861) would have permanently barred Congress from interfering with slavery; the Thirteenth Amendment rendered it moot. The Child Labor Amendment (1924) would have given Congress the power to regulate labor by anyone under eighteen. The Equal Rights Amendment (1972) would have guaranteed equal rights regardless of sex; only 35 states ratified before its deadline, three more ratified between 2017 and 2020, and the Archivist has refused to certify it based on Justice Department opinions that the deadline had already expired. The DC Representation Amendment (1978) would have treated the District as a state for congressional representation and presidential elections; only 16 states ratified before its deadline expired in 1985.25Legal Information Institute. Washington DC Voting Rights Amendment