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Since the Bill of Rights, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed. Seventeen have been ratified by the states, for a total of only 27 amendments to the Constitution.
This shows how hard it is to amend the Constitution—which is what the men who drew up the Constitution intended. They wanted a flexible document that expressed broad principles, so that it wouldn’t have to be amended often and future generations could interpret it according to changing attitudes and new situations. But some amendments have been necessary.
▲ The framers (authors) did not realize that political parties would become important. They planned for officials to be elected without them, hoping that voters would choose candidates based on individual talents. The person receiving the most electoral votes would become president, and the runner-up would become vice president. Very quickly, in 1796, electors picked Federalist John Adams as president and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson as vice president. That made it hard for the two men to work together. The 12th Amendment fixed this by allowing parties to nominate a team for president and vice president. Today, the major political parties in the United States are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
◀ In 1865, slavery was stopped after the end of the Civil War (also known as the War Between the States). The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments reflect this new reality. The 13th Amendment ends slavery. The 14th Amendment says that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen, including former slaves, and that states cannot deny people rights granted in the Constitution. The 15th Amendment says that former slaves and other people of color have the right to vote. Some states got around this by charging a poll tax, and refusing to allow people to vote if they couldn’t pay the tax. The 24th Amendment, passed in 1964, says people cannot be denied the right to vote just because they can’t pay a tax.
▲ For many years, there was a strong social movement in the U.S. to end the consumption of alcoholic beverages. In 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution declared it was illegal to make, sell, or drink alcohol. But the law was hard to enforce. Huge numbers of people still found ways to drink—with organized crime providing most of the beer, wine, and liquor. By 1933, the legal experiment in controlling people’s desire to drink alcohol was considered a failure. The 21st Amendment repealed, or ended, the 18th Amendment.
▲ The framers of the Constitution were all white men, and most were wealthy property owners. They considered limiting the right to vote, by giving it only to other white men who owned property. However, they let the states set up their own voting qualifications. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, most states still had property requirements. From 1848, there was a growing movement to allow women to vote, and in 1920 the 19th Amendment finally gave women the vote.
◀ In 1972, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, or the ERA. It said there should be no discrimination based on gender. But in order for it to become an amendment, three-fourths of the states had to vote in favor of it. The amendment didn’t get the necessary three-fourths vote in the time limit that had been placed on it. Opponents said the amendment was not needed because there were already laws to protect equal rights for women. Those who think the ERA should have been passed say that gender discrimination still exists. For example, female workers earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by male workers.
In the late 1960s, men as young as 18 were being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Many people thought it was wrong that these young men could be forced to go to war but could not vote. A movement to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 resulted in the 26th Amendment. Passed in 1971, it grants the vote to citizens 18 and older. ▶
Think Piece!
Do you think the voting age should be lower than that? Higher? Why?
