The list of amendments to the United States Constitution runs from the First Amendment, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, to the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, ratified in 1992.1United States Senate. Constitution of the United States Twenty-seven amendments have been ratified in total. The first ten arrived together and protect individual liberties; the remaining seventeen span nearly two centuries and touch nearly every part of American public life, from citizenship and voting rights to the income tax, presidential succession, and congressional pay.
Amendments 1–10: The Bill of Rights (1791)
The first ten amendments were proposed by the First Congress in 1789 and ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791.2National Archives. Bill of Rights (1791) They limit federal power over individuals and guarantee core civil liberties.3National Archives. The Bill of Rights: What Does it Say?
First Amendment. Bars Congress from establishing a national religion or restricting the free exercise of religion, and protects freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government.4Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – First Amendment
Second Amendment. Protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms, tied in its text to the necessity of a well-regulated militia.5Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Second Amendment
Third Amendment. Prohibits the government from housing soldiers in a private home during peacetime without the owner’s consent; during wartime, quartering is permitted only as prescribed by law.6Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Third Amendment
Fourth Amendment. Protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrants require probable cause, must be supported by a sworn statement, and must describe the specific place to be searched and items to be seized.7Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourth Amendment
Fifth Amendment. Requires a grand jury indictment for serious criminal charges, bars trying someone twice for the same offense, and protects against forced self-incrimination. It guarantees that no one is deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and requires fair compensation when the government takes private property for public use.8Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifth Amendment
Sixth Amendment. Guarantees a speedy, public trial before an impartial jury in the district where the crime was committed. Defendants must be told what they are charged with, allowed to confront witnesses against them, and given the right to an attorney.9Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixth Amendment
Seventh Amendment. Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount in dispute exceeds twenty dollars.10Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventh Amendment
Eighth Amendment. Prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.11Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighth Amendment
Ninth Amendment. Clarifies that the rights listed in the Constitution are not the only rights people hold; a right does not have to be spelled out to exist.12Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Ninth Amendment
Tenth Amendment. Reserves to the states, or to the people, any power the Constitution does not hand to the federal government and does not prohibit the states from exercising.13Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment
Amendments 11–27
Eleventh Amendment (1795). Strips federal courts of jurisdiction over lawsuits brought against a state by citizens of another state or by foreign nationals, protecting a degree of state sovereign immunity.14Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eleventh Amendment
Twelfth Amendment (1804). Requires electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president, fixing a design flaw in the original Electoral College under which the presidential runner-up became vice president.15Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twelfth Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment (1865). Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, with a narrow exception allowing forced labor as criminal punishment. It was the first amendment to directly limit what states and private individuals could do.16Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment (1868). Established birthright citizenship: anyone born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen of the country and of the state where they live. Its Due Process Clause bars states from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without fair legal procedures, and its Equal Protection Clause requires states to treat people equally under the law.17Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 also disqualifies anyone who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution as a federal or state official and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office again, unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress vote to remove that disability.18Constitution Annotated. Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 – Disqualification from Holding Office
Fifteenth Amendment (1870). Prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and gives Congress explicit power to enforce voting equality through legislation.19Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment
Sixteenth Amendment (1913). Authorizes Congress to collect an income tax without dividing the revenue among the states based on population. The Supreme Court had previously struck down a federal income tax as unconstitutional, so this amendment was essential to the modern federal revenue system.20Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment21National Archives. 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – Federal Income Tax (1913)
Seventeenth Amendment (1913). Took the power to choose U.S. Senators away from state legislatures and gave it directly to voters, replacing a process that had become plagued by corruption and deadlock in several states.22Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment23National Archives. 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913)
Eighteenth Amendment (1919). Banned the production, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages nationwide.24Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighteenth Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Prohibits denying the vote based on sex, guaranteeing women the right to vote nationwide.25Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment
Twentieth Amendment (1933). Often called the “Lame Duck Amendment.” Moved the start of presidential and vice-presidential terms to January 20 and congressional terms to January 3, closing the four-month gap during which outgoing officials who had lost their seats could still vote on legislation.26Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twentieth Amendment
Twenty-First Amendment (1933). Repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, ending national Prohibition and returning the authority to regulate alcohol to the states. It is the only amendment ever used to undo a previous one and the only amendment ratified by state conventions rather than state legislatures.27Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-First Amendment
Twenty-Second Amendment (1951). Limits the presidency to two elected terms. Someone who assumes the office through succession and serves more than two years of a predecessor’s term can be elected only once on their own; someone who serves two years or less can still be elected twice, for a theoretical maximum of about ten years in office.28Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
Twenty-Third Amendment (1961). Gave residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote in presidential elections. The District receives a number of Electoral College electors equal to what it would get if it were a state, but no more than the least populous state, which in practice has meant three electors.29Congress.gov. Twenty-Third Amendment – District of Columbia Electors
Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964). Abolished poll taxes in federal elections, removing a financial barrier that had been used to suppress voter turnout, particularly among Black citizens in the South.30Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Fourth Amendment
Twenty-Fifth Amendment (1967). Spells out what happens when the presidency or vice presidency becomes vacant and creates a procedure for handling presidential disability.31Congress.gov. Overview of Twenty-Fifth Amendment, Presidential Vacancy and Disability If the vice presidency is empty, the president nominates a replacement subject to confirmation by both houses of Congress. Under Section 4, the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can declare the president unable to serve, and the vice president becomes acting president. If the president disputes the declaration, Congress decides, and a two-thirds vote in both chambers is required to keep the president sidelined.32Legal Information Institute. 25th Amendment
Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971). Lowered the minimum voting age to eighteen for all federal and state elections.33Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment
Twenty-Seventh Amendment (1992). Prevents any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of Representatives.34Congress.gov. Overview of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, Congressional Compensation It has the most unusual backstory of any amendment: originally proposed by the First Congress in 1789 alongside the Bill of Rights, it went unratified for more than two centuries until Michigan’s approval on May 7, 1992, pushed it over the three-fourths threshold.35U.S. House of Representatives. The Twenty-seventh Amendment
How an Amendment Gets Added
Article V of the Constitution creates a deliberately difficult two-step process: proposal, then ratification.
An amendment can be proposed in two ways. The common path requires a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Alternatively, two-thirds of the state legislatures can call for a national convention to propose amendments.36National Archives. Constitution of the United States – Article V No such convention has ever been called; every one of the 27 existing amendments was proposed by Congress.37Congress.gov. Article V – Amending the Constitution
Once proposed, an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. Congress chooses the method: state legislatures or special state ratifying conventions. Only the Twenty-First Amendment has been ratified by conventions.36National Archives. Constitution of the United States – Article V
The President plays no formal role. The Supreme Court confirmed in Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798) that a constitutional amendment does not need the President’s signature.38Legal Information Institute. Hollingsworth v. Virginia Once the required number of states ratifies, the Archivist of the United States certifies the amendment as part of the Constitution.39National Archives. The National Archives Role in Amending the Constitution
Proposed Amendments That Are Not Part of the Constitution
Six amendments have been proposed by Congress but never ratified by enough states to take effect. Some had no ratification deadline and remain technically pending; others expired.40Constitution Annotated. Proposed Amendments Not Ratified by the States None of the following is part of the Constitution:
- Congressional Apportionment Amendment (1789), which would have set a formula for how many Representatives each state receives. Proposed alongside the Bill of Rights, no expiration date.
- Titles of Nobility Amendment (1810), which would have stripped citizenship from anyone who accepted a title of nobility from a foreign government without congressional consent. No expiration date.
- Corwin Amendment (1861), which would have permanently prevented Congress from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed. Rendered moot by the Thirteenth Amendment; no expiration date.
- Child Labor Amendment (1924), which would have given Congress power to regulate labor by anyone under eighteen. Federal child-labor laws enacted under the Commerce Clause eventually achieved much of its goal.
- Equal Rights Amendment (1972), which declared that equal rights under the law could not be denied on account of sex. Although enough states eventually ratified it, those ratifications came after the congressionally imposed deadline. The Archivist of the United States has stated that the ERA cannot be certified as part of the Constitution under current legal and procedural rulings.41National Archives. Statement on the Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Process
- District of Columbia Representation Amendment (1978), which would have treated D.C. as a state for congressional representation and presidential elections. Only 16 states ratified it before its seven-year deadline expired in 1985.