List of ratified amendments
From Uniting Amendment
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| − | | This amendment was part of the original 12 amendments passed by Congress for the Bill of Rights, but two of those -- including this one -- were not ratified by the states. It was long forgotten until | + | | This amendment was part of the original 12 amendments passed by Congress for the Bill of Rights, but two of those -- including this one -- were not ratified by the states. It was long forgotten until 1982, when a student named Gregory Watson discovered the forgotten amendment while researching a paper on the Equal Rights Amendment. He decided to do his paper on this amendment instead. Then he decided to try to get it ratified. After a long campaign of letter-writing to legislators the amendment was finally ratified ten years later and 202 years after it was passed by Congress. |
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Revision as of 12:14, 18 November 2014
| # | Description | Date passed by Congress | Date ratified | Type | Context/effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | No establishment of religion; freedom of religion, speech, and assembly; right to petition for redress of grievances. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | The United States Constitution is the shortest constitution in history and therefore is rather vague. When it went into effect, it enumerated many powers of the federal government and recognized some rights guaranteed to the people, however, there was ambiguity about the powers and rights that were not mentioned in the document. Many people were worried that the federal government would take all the powers not mentioned in the Constitution and infringe the people's rights that were not specified in the document. The Bill of Rights cleared up some of that ambiguity by specifying rights that could not be violated by Congress and indicated that all powers not mentioned in the Constitution belonged to the states. It was passed by Congress just six months after the Constitution went into force and was ratified two years later. The Bill of Rights helped to unify the new union of states and kept the country together for more than 60 years. |
| 2 | Protects the right to keep and bear arms. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 3 | Prohibits soldiers from staying in private homes without the owner's consent (during peacetime). | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 4 | Prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures; requires probable cause for warrants. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 5 | Right to due process; no self-incrimination or double jeopardy; rules for grand jury and eminent domain | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 6 | Fair, speedy and public trial; trial by jury; notification of accusations; right to confront the accuser and obtain witnesses; counsel. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 7 | Right to jury trial for civil cases over $20; follow common law in any reexamination of facts. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 8 | Prohibits excessive fines, excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishment. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 9 | Unenumerated rights that are retained by the people are not abridged when the Constitution recognizes other rights. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice | |
| 10 | Powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution belong to the States or the people. | September 25, 1789 | December 15, 1791 | Liberty and justice; State sovereignty | |
| 11 | States are immune from suits from out-of-state citizens and foreigners. | March 4, 1794 | February 7, 1795 | Procedural; State sovereignty |
This amendment plugged a loophole in the Constitution that would allow the federal government to supersede state sovereignty when someone from outside the state tried to sue the state. It was in response to the Supreme Court case, Chisholm v. Georgia, and reversed that decision. |
| 12 | Update Electoral College procedures. | December 9, 1803 | June 15, 1804 | Procedural | Problems with the presidential elections in 1796 and 1800 prompted this amendment to tweak the electoral college process. |
| 13 | Abolished slavery. | January 31, 1865 | December 6, 1865 | Liberty and justice | If the country could have come to agreement on these three amendments a decade earlier, we could have avoided the Civil War and saved the lives of 600,000 Americans. |
| 14 | Defined citizenship; Extended the protection of the people's rights against State power (Privileges and Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, Equal Protection Clause); Reconstruction. | June 13, 1866 | July 9, 1868 | Liberty and justice | |
| 15 | Black suffrage. Because of Jim Crow laws, it would be nearly 100 years before this amendment was in full effect. (Mississippi held its congressional elections in December 1, 1869, so this amendment didn't effect blacks in Mississippi until subsequent elections.) | February 26, 1869 | February 3, 1870 | Liberty and justice | |
| 16 | Income tax. | July 12, 1909 | February 3, 1913 | Power grab | Supported by the Socialist Labor Party, the Populist Party, and the Democratic Party during the first years of the 20th century, the 13th Amendment was passed in response to Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. It has produced one of the largest, most byzantine bureaucracies ever seen and has been responsible for many governmental abuses of power and disparity of wealth. |
| 17 | Direct election of Senators. Because of the staggered elections for the three classes of Senators, this amendment didn't effect all Citizens until the elections in 1918. | May 13, 1912 | April 8, 1913 | Liberty and justice | Direct election of Senators was considered when the Constitution was drafted, but because at that time the federal government was viewed more as a kind of permanent treaty organization between sovereign states than as a single country, it was rejected. Support for the idea gradually grew over time and many states independently instituted popular elections for their two Senators. Several attempts at amending the Constitution were tried over the years and finally an amendment was passed and quickly ratified which insured suffrage for the people of each state. |
| 18 | Prohibition of alcohol. Took effect in 1920 | December 18, 1917 | January 16, 1919 | Power grab | Some people got confused about the difference between protecting people from each other and protecting people from themselves. Force may be used for the former, but only persuasion and education should be used for the latter. |
| 19 | Women's suffrage. | June 4, 1919 | August 18, 1920 | Liberty and justice | As part of the broader women's rights movement, support for women's suffrage began to grow concurrently with black suffrage during the Civil War. However, proposed amendments could not make it through Congress. Support continued to grow over the decades until the amendment was finally passed by Congress and ratified relatively quickly by the States. |
| 20 | Changed the dates of the start of the terms of the President and Vice President. The first presidential term effected by the amendment started on January 20, 1937. | March 2, 1932 | January 23, 1933 | Procedural | This amendment is significant because it is the first constitutional amendment to respond to technological changes. Originally, there was a long gap of about four months between the time a president was elected and the start of the new term of office. This was needed because of the slow transportation and communication of the time, however, it meant that the lame duck government was largely ineffective during that period. In 1933, with modern transportation and communication, that long transition was no longer necessary so the start dates of the terms were moved up to have a shorter lame duck period. |
| 21 | Repealed Prohibition. | February 20, 1933 | December 5, 1933 | Liberty and justice | Oops! |
| 22 | Term limits for President. | March 24, 1947 | February 27, 1951 | Procedural | A lot of people got freaked out when FDR decided to ignore tradition and stay in office past the historical two terms. This amendment was ratified to help prevent a dictator from taking power. |
| 23 | Electoral College for Washington, D.C. First used in the 1964 election. | June 16, 1960 | March 29, 1961 | Liberty and justice | It didn't seem fair that the people who lived in D.C. didn't get to participate in the presidential election (because only states had electors). First proposed in 1890, it took 70 years for the country to come together on ratifying an amendment to give D.C. citizens three electoral votes. |
| 24 | Eliminates the poll tax. | September 14, 1962 | January 23, 1964 | Liberty and justice | Poll taxes were used to prevent poor people from voting, especially blacks. This amendment was ratified during the height of the civil rights movement in the 60s. |
| 25 | Update procedures for presidential succession. | July 6, 1965 | February 10, 1967 | Procedural | The assassination of JFK brought to light problems with the procedures of presidential succession and this amendment addressed those issues. |
| 26 | Right to vote for eighteen-year-olds. | March 23, 1971 | July 1, 1971 | Liberty and justice | During the Vietnam War (an unpopular war among many people in the U.S.), young men were forced to join the military and were shipped overseas to fight the war. The voting age at the time for federal elections was 21 years of age. Most of the conscripts were too young to vote and this was seen as an injustice. This amendment was quickly ratified to correct that. Today the effect of the 26th amendment has largely been wiped out by systematic educational and cultural influence to discourage the youth vote. |
| 27 | Raises for representatives don't take effect until after a Congressional election. | September 25, 1789 | May 7, 1992 | Procedural | This amendment was part of the original 12 amendments passed by Congress for the Bill of Rights, but two of those -- including this one -- were not ratified by the states. It was long forgotten until 1982, when a student named Gregory Watson discovered the forgotten amendment while researching a paper on the Equal Rights Amendment. He decided to do his paper on this amendment instead. Then he decided to try to get it ratified. After a long campaign of letter-writing to legislators the amendment was finally ratified ten years later and 202 years after it was passed by Congress. |
