
Ĭongress has also enacted statutes governing the constitutional amendment process. That amendment is also the only one that explicitly repeals an earlier one, the Eighteenth Amendment (ratified in 1919), establishing the prohibition of alcohol. The only amendment to be ratified through the state convention method thus far is the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. State ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states.The legislatures of three-fourths of the states or.To become part of the Constitution, an amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 since 1959) by either (as determined by Congress): The convention option has never been used. A national convention, called by Congress for this purpose, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states (34 since 1959).

Congress, whenever a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives deem it necessary or Īn amendment may be proposed and sent to the states for ratification by either: This process was designed to strike a balance between the excesses of constant change and inflexibility. Amendments must be properly proposed and ratified before becoming operative. Proposal and ratification process Īrticle Five of the United States Constitution details the two-step process for amending the nation's plan of government. All 27 ratified and six unratified amendments are listed and detailed in the tables below.

Four of those amendments are still pending, one is closed and has failed by its own terms, and one is closed and has failed by the terms of the resolution proposing it. Six amendments adopted by Congress and sent to the states have not been ratified by the required number of states.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments. The first ten amendments were adopted and ratified simultaneously and are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. Twenty-seven of those, having been ratified by the requisite number of states, are part of the Constitution. Thirty-three amendments to the Constitution of the United States have been proposed by the United States Congress and sent to the states for ratification since the Constitution was put into operation on March 4, 1789.
