🎯 Capstone Background of Process and Change to the Constitution (Overview)

Capstone - Background of Process and Change to the Constitution

Before you begin planning your amendment proposal, you will spend time reviewing information on amendments, ways to amend the Constitution, and hurdles in the process. Once this task is complete, you will participate in the Background of Process and Change to the Constitution Discussion.

What is an Amendment?  An amendment is any change added to improve something. More specific to this topic, an amendment is a modification made to the US Constitution to improve and update the document.

In designing the Constitution, the framers added the ability to amend it as concerns might arise that they had not anticipated. As a living document, the framers wanted the Constitution to reflect the changing times and meet the nation’s needs.

Article V sets out two procedures for amending the Constitution.

  1. Congress may propose amendments by two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate.
  2. Two-thirds of the state legislatures may call a convention for proposing amendments. (To date, this has not happened.)

Under either procedure, three-fourths of the states must ratify an amendment for it to become part of the Constitution.

 

Adding an amendment to the United States Constitution is not an easy task. Read the following article provided by the Harry S. Truman Library:  The Amendment Process Links to an external site.

For an amendment to reach the ratification finish line, it needs to: 

  1. Address a constitutional issue.
  2. Gain nationwide public support.
  3. Overcoming partisan divisions.

 

Review information provided by the White House website:

The process set out in the Constitution for its ratification provided for much popular debate in the States. The Constitution would take effect once it had been ratified by nine of the thirteen State legislatures; unanimity was not required. During the debate over the Constitution, two factions emerged: the Federalists, who supported adoption, and the Anti-Federalists, who opposed it.

James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay set out an eloquent defense of the new Constitution in what came to be called the Federalist Papers. Published anonymously in the newspapers The Independent Journal and The New York Packet under the name Publius between October 1787 and August 1788, the 85 articles that comprise the Federalist Papers remain to this day an invaluable resource for understanding some of the framers’ intentions for the Constitution. The most famous of the articles are No. 10, which warns of the dangers of factions and advocates a large republic, and No. 51, which explains the structure of the Constitution, its checks and balances, and how it protects the rights of the people.

The States proceeded to begin ratification, with some debating more intensely than others. Delaware was the first State to ratify, on December 7, 1787. After New Hampshire became the ninth State to ratify, on June 22, 1788, the Confederation Congress established March 9, 1789 as the date to begin operating under the Constitution. By this time, all the States except North Carolina and Rhode Island had ratified—the Ocean State was the last to ratify on May 29, 1790.

 

The founders also specified a process by which the Constitution may be amended, and since its ratification, the Constitution has been amended 27 times. To prevent arbitrary changes, the process for making amendments is quite onerous. An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification. In modern times, amendments have traditionally specified a time frame in which this must be accomplished, usually several years. Additionally, the Constitution specifies that no amendment can deny a State equal representation in the Senate without that State’s consent.

Learn more about the formal process of amending the Constitution by reading this article from the National Archives website. Links to an external site.

 

Watch the TedTalk video, below, by Peter Paccone: Why is the US Constitution so hard to amend?

 

For added insight, work through Module 15: Article V and the 27 Amendments from the Constitution 101 Curriculum from the National Constitution Center website. Links to an external site.

  1. Review Article 5 of the Constitution.
  2. Review the 27 amendments to the United States Constitution.
  3. Research ideas for an added amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
    • Can you think of a right or freedom that needs to be protected in the United States?
    • Is there a new power or a limit on a power that needs to be added to the Constitution?
    • Or is there a function of the Constitution that needs to be revised?

 

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