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Happy Birthday - 250 years of the USA - Part 4

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The US Constitution – Difficult to Change

Under Article V, an amendment to the US constitution can be proposed by one of two methods. All amendments have been proposed by the first method, a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate. The second method, through a convention requested by two-thirds of the states, has never been used. Those proposed amendments passed by both houses of Congress must then be ratified by three-fourths of the states. For this reason, the US Constitution is considered one of the most difficult national constitutions to amend. Since 1789, Congress has proposed 33 amendments that were sent to the states. In the previous two newsletters, we have discussed the 27 that were ultimately ratified by the states. Six amendments approved by Congress were never ratified by the states:

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• Congressional Apportionment Amendment — Proposed in 1789 and ratified by only 10 states, the last in 1792, with no time limit specified it remains active. It sought to regulate the apportionment of representatives, settling on one House Representative for every 50,000 constituents. If passed, the House of Representatives today would have 6,623 representatives. As the amendment has not been ratified, Congress sets the size of the House of Representatives by statute, currently at 437 members.

• Titles of Nobility Amendment — Proposed in 1810, it aimed to prevent US citizens from accepting titles of nobility from foreign powers. At that time it required 13 states to ratify, but only 12 states did, the last in 1812. If passed, any citizen who accepted or received any title of nobility from a foreign power, or who accepted without the consent of Congress any gift from a foreign power, would no longer be a citizen. Since no time limit was set for ratification, it remains active.

• Slavery Amendment of 1861 (the Corwin Amendment)— Proposed in 1861 in an effort to avoid a civil war. It specified that no amendment be made to the Constitution which would authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any State with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service (interpreted as slavery) by the laws of said State. Six states initially ratified this amendment with five since rescinding their support. If passed it would have made slavery immune to the constitutional amendment procedures and to interference by Congress, making the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments impermissible although a subsequent amendment could have repealed it.

• Equal Rights Amendment — Proposed in 1923, it aimed to guarantee equal legal rights regardless of sex. Specifically, the equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Ratification failed within the 10 years specified for this task.

• Child Labor Amendment — Proposed in 1924, it would grant Congress the power to regulate the labor of children under the age of 18. This amendment has been ratified by 28 states, the last in 1937, and is still pending ratification by at least 10 additional states.

• Washington District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment — Proposed in 1978, it aimed to grant citizens of Washington DC the same full representation in Congress as any state. If ratified this amendment would repeal the 23rd Amendment as no longer needed.

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From initial ratification through January 2025, Congress has proposed 11,985 amendments.  If we include proposals from sources beyond Congress, that number is doubled. Given the current political environment, we can expect to see many more proposed amendments in the coming years.