There are 27 amendments to the US Constitution. The first ten, known as the Bill of Rights, were ratified together in 1791, and the most recent took effect in 1992.1United States Senate. Constitution of the United States That total is small on purpose: members of Congress have introduced close to 12,000 amendment proposals over more than two centuries, and only 27 made it all the way through.2United States Senate. Measures Proposed to Amend the Constitution
The First Ten: The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791. Congress had actually sent twelve proposed amendments to the states, but only ten cleared the three-fourths threshold at the time.3National Archives. The Bill of Rights: A Transcription Anti-Federalists had pressed for them out of concern that the new central government would override individual liberties without explicit limits.4National Archives. The Bill of Rights: How Did it Happen?
These are the rights the first ten amendments protect:
- First: freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition.
- Second: the right to bear arms.
- Third: limits on quartering soldiers in private homes.
- Fourth: protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
- Fifth through Eighth: protections for people accused of crimes, including due process, a speedy trial by jury, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
- Ninth: a reminder that rights not listed in the Constitution still exist.
- Tenth: any power not given to the federal government stays with the states or the people.5Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment
Amendments 11 Through 27
The other seventeen amendments split roughly into two projects: expanding who counts as a full participant in American democracy, and adjusting how the federal government itself operates.
The Reconstruction Amendments (13, 14, 15)
The three amendments ratified after the Civil War made the largest single expansion of civil rights in the Constitution’s history. The Thirteenth abolished slavery.6Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment The Fourteenth guaranteed equal protection under the law and barred states from depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process.7Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment The Fifteenth prohibited denying the vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.8Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment
Amendments Expanding the Vote
Later amendments continued opening the ballot to more Americans. The Nineteenth, ratified in 1920, prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of sex. The Twenty-Sixth, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.9USAGov. Voting Rights Laws and Constitutional Amendments The Seventeenth Amendment moved the election of U.S. senators away from state legislatures and put it directly in the hands of voters.10Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment
Amendments Reshaping the Government
Others changed the mechanics of federal power. The Sixteenth, ratified in 1913, authorized Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states by population, creating the legal basis for the modern federal tax system.11Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment The Twenty-Second limits a president to two elected terms.12Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment The Eighteenth Amendment banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol in 1919, and the Twenty-First repealed it in 1933. Prohibition remains the only constitutional amendment ever undone by another amendment.
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment
The most recent amendment holds the record for the longest ratification stretch in American history. It prevents any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of Representatives. Congress originally proposed it in 1789 alongside the Bill of Rights, but it fell short at the time. Because no deadline was attached, it sat as a pending proposal for over two centuries and was finally ratified on May 7, 1992.13Congress.gov. Amdt27.2.5 Ratification of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment
Why So Few Amendments Have Passed
Article V of the Constitution sets up a deliberately difficult two-step process. First, Congress proposes an amendment by a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate. Every amendment ratified so far took this route.14Congress.gov. Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution Article V also allows two-thirds of state legislatures to call a national convention for proposing amendments, but that path has never been used.15National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process The president has no role: the veto power applies to ordinary legislation, not to constitutional amendments.
Once Congress proposes an amendment, three-fourths of the states must approve it. Congress chooses whether states vote through their legislatures or through specially called ratifying conventions. The convention method has been used exactly once, for the Twenty-First Amendment repealing Prohibition. With fifty states today, at least thirty-eight must sign on.14Congress.gov. Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution After the threshold is reached, the Archivist of the United States certifies the amendment and publishes it in the Federal Register.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 1 USC 106b
Starting with the Eighteenth Amendment in 1917, Congress has typically attached a seven-year ratification deadline to proposed amendments.17Congress.gov. Congressional Deadlines for Ratification of an Amendment When no deadline is set, a proposal can sit indefinitely.
Proposed Amendments That Did Not Make It
Six additional amendments cleared Congress and went to the states but never reached the three-fourths threshold.18Congress.gov. Proposed Amendments Not Ratified by the States They are:
- The Congressional Apportionment Amendment (1789), which would have set a formula for the size of the House. It has no deadline and technically remains pending.
- The Titles of Nobility Amendment (early 1800s), which would have stripped citizenship from anyone who accepted a foreign title of nobility.
- The Corwin Amendment (1861), which would have barred the federal government from interfering with slavery in existing states. It also has no deadline and is technically still pending.
- The Child Labor Amendment (1924), which would have given Congress the power to regulate labor by people under eighteen.
- The Equal Rights Amendment (1972), which would have prohibited discrimination based on sex. Its ratification deadline expired in 1982, and its legal status remains contested.
- The D.C. Voting Rights Amendment (1978), which would have given the District of Columbia full congressional representation. Its seven-year deadline expired in 1985 with only sixteen states having ratified.
Thousands of other proposals never even cleared Congress. Members have introduced amendments on subjects ranging from banning flag burning to requiring a balanced federal budget, and the two-thirds vote in both chambers stops nearly all of them before they reach the states.