List of ratified amendments

| rowspan="10" | The United States Constitution is the shortest 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.

| This amendment plugged a loophole in the Constitution that would allow the federal government to supercede 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.  

| Problems with the presidential elections in 1796 and 1800 propted this amendment to tweek the electoral college process.

| rowspan="3" | 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.

| Defined citizenship; Extended the protection of the poeple's rights against State power (Privileges and Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, Equal Protection Clause); Reconstruction.

| 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 Decemeber 1, 1869, so this amendment didn't effect blacks in Mississippi until subsequent elections.)  

| 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.

| 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 soverign 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.

| 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.

| Women suffrage.

| 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.

| Procedural.

| Oops!

| 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 radified to help prevent a dictator from taking power.

| Poll taxes were used to prevent poor people from voting, especially blacks. This amendment was ratified buring the height of the civil rights movement in the 60s.

| The assasination of JFK brought to light problems with the procedures of presidential succession and this amendment addressed those issues.

| 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.  

| This amendment was part of the original 12 amendments passed by Congress for the Bill of Rights, but two of those -- including this one -- was not ratified by the states. It was long forgotten until in 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.