50 Fun Facts About Constitutional Amendments

Which amendment, ratified in August 1920, stopped states from denying anyone the vote on the basis of sex?

The 19th Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878 and took 42 years to win. The Senate, which voted it down in 1887, did not pass it until June 1919.

Which amendment, the only one ever repealed, banned the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors?

The 18th Amendment brought in nationwide Prohibition from January 1920 and lasted not quite fourteen years. It never outlawed possessing or drinking alcohol.

Which 2012 Steven Spielberg film dramatizes the fight in Congress to pass the amendment abolishing slavery?

Lincoln won Daniel Day-Lewis his third Best Actor Oscar and follows the president through January 1865 as he hunts for the last few votes in the House of Representatives.

Which state became the decisive 36th to ratify women's suffrage after a young legislator heeded his mother's letter?

Tennessee tipped the balance when Harry Burn, elected at 22 as its youngest legislator, changed sides. A letter from his mother, Febb, asking him to vote for ratification had arrived that morning.

Whose four presidential election wins led Congress to propose the amendment capping presidents at two terms?

Franklin Roosevelt won in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944, breaking a two-term tradition set by the earliest presidents. Republicans who took control of Congress in 1947 made term limits a priority.

The 27th Amendment, ratified a record 202 years after Congress proposed it, delays changes to what?

Congressional pay changes cannot take effect until after the next House election under the 27th Amendment. It went to the states in 1789 and was finally ratified in 1992.

The 3rd Amendment forbids the peacetime housing of whom in private homes without the owner's consent?

Soldiers lodged under Britain's Quartering Acts were a colonial grievance that the 3rd Amendment answered. It is now among the least cited parts of the Constitution.

Which amendment do witnesses invoke when they refuse to answer questions that might incriminate themselves?

The 5th Amendment says nobody can be compelled in a criminal case to be a witness against himself. Entertainers who invoked it before Congress in the 1950s hunt for communists often found themselves on the Hollywood blacklist.

The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 after protests over young men being drafted for which war?

Vietnam War draftees could be sent into combat at 18 but could not vote until 21. The 26th Amendment passed faster than any other, ratified about 100 days after Congress proposed it in 1971.

Who became vice president in 1973 under a new amendment, then president without being elected to either office?

Gerald Ford was nominated by Richard Nixon after Spiro Agnew resigned, then confirmed by both houses of Congress. He took over the presidency eight months later when Nixon quit over Watergate.

Which amendment, at the heart of the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller ruling, protects the right to keep and bear arms?

The 2nd Amendment was read in Heller as protecting an individual's right to keep a gun at home for self-defense. The justices added that the right is not unlimited.

Which amendment, ratified in December 1865 after the Civil War, abolished slavery across the United States?

The 13th Amendment needed approval from 27 of the 36 states of the day. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had declared free only those enslaved in Confederate-controlled areas.

The 16th Amendment of 1913 lets Congress collect which tax without dividing it among the states by population?

Income tax had been struck down by the Supreme Court in 1895, so Congress proposed the 16th Amendment to overrule the justices. Until then the federal government had lived mainly on tariffs and excise taxes.

Which 1966 Supreme Court ruling requires police to warn suspects in custody of the right to remain silent?

Miranda v. Arizona threw out a confession that Phoenix police had taken without any warning, by a 5–4 vote. Ernesto Miranda was retried without it and convicted again.

Which Bill of Rights protection stops prosecutors from retrying a defendant for the same offense after an acquittal?

Double jeopardy has a famous loophole: a state and the federal government count as separate powers, so each can prosecute the same act. The rule also bars a new trial after a conviction.

The women's suffrage amendment was nicknamed for which reformer, arrested in 1872 for voting in Rochester, New York?

Susan B. Anthony was convicted in a widely publicized trial and refused to pay her fine. She died in 1906, fourteen years before the measure that carried her name was ratified.

The 23rd Amendment gave Electoral College votes to residents of which place, who first voted for president in 1964?

Washington, D.C. has had three electoral votes in every election since, the same as the least populous state. The 23rd Amendment bars it from ever having more than that state.

Which western state supplied the 36th and deciding ratification that ended nationwide Prohibition in December 1933?

Utah's delegates voted 20–0 for repeal on the same day as Ohio and Pennsylvania, which made theirs the clinching vote. The result was certified just 17 minutes later.

Which Virginia congressman and future president drafted the Bill of Rights after at first opposing the idea?

James Madison had dismissed state bills of rights as parchment barriers, yet he wrote the federal one to win over critics of the new Constitution. Congress sent his proposals to the states in 1789.

The 1st Amendment protects religion, speech, the press, assembly and which other right, traceable to Magna Carta?

Petition, the right to ask the government to put a grievance right, appeared in Magna Carta in 1215. It now covers lobbying officials and taking a complaint to court.

Which amendment, rooted in colonial anger at British general warrants, forbids unreasonable searches and seizures?

The 4th Amendment also demands that a warrant describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized. A 1967 ruling about a bugged telephone booth stretched it beyond physical intrusions.

Which amendment, borrowing its wording from the English Bill of Rights of 1689, bans cruel and unusual punishments?

The 8th Amendment also forbids excessive bail and excessive fines. Its English model was largely inspired by the harsh sentence passed on the perjurer Titus Oates in the 1680s.

Which 1868 amendment made people born on American soil citizens and underpinned Brown v. Board of Education?

The 14th Amendment is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution. States of the defeated Confederacy had to ratify it before they could regain their seats in Congress.

Which amendment ended nationwide Prohibition in December 1933 by cancelling an earlier amendment outright?

The 21st Amendment is the only one that repeals another. It left each state free to restrict alcohol within its own borders, and numerous dry communities remain across the country.

Which amendment, ratified in 1951, bars anyone from being elected president more than twice?

The 22nd Amendment took nearly four years to clear the states, finishing in February 1951. Only 36 approvals were needed, because Alaska and Hawaii had not yet been admitted.

After Congress proposes an amendment by a two-thirds vote, what share of the states must ratify it?

Three-fourths of the states means 38 of the 50. Every state's vote carries equal weight, whatever its population or its length of time in the Union.

The 17th Amendment let voters directly elect members of which body, previously chosen by state legislatures?

The Senate had seats left empty whenever a state legislature deadlocked over its choice. Delaware went without one of its two members from 1899 until 1903.

The 24th Amendment outlawed which barrier to voting in federal elections, still used in five Southern states in 1964?

Poll taxes were struck down for state elections too in 1966, by a 6–3 vote of the Supreme Court. Of the five states affected, only Arkansas had repealed its charge by then.

Texas v. Johnson (1989) held that the 1st Amendment protects which protest act, then illegal in 48 states?

Burning the American flag counts as symbolic speech, the justices ruled 5–4 after a protester did it in Dallas in 1984. Congress answered with a federal ban, which the Court threw out a year later.

The 20th Amendment cut short which period, when defeated officials serve out their terms after an election?

Lame duck stretches used to last four months, because a president elected in November was not sworn in until March 4. The 20th Amendment moved the date to January 20.

Which amendment expresses the principle of federalism by reserving undelegated powers to the states or the people?

The 10th Amendment makes explicit that the federal government holds only the powers the Constitution grants it. The Supreme Court has called it a truism.

Which 1967 amendment lets a vice president and a Cabinet majority declare a president unable to do the job?

The 25th Amendment gained urgency from the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which left the vice presidency empty until January 1965. It also lets a president hand over power voluntarily.

Which candidate tied Thomas Jefferson in the 1800 Electoral College vote, the deadlock that led to the 12th Amendment?

Aaron Burr was meant to be Jefferson's deputy, but every elector of their party voted for both men. Neither could win in the House of Representatives on the first 35 ballots.

Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) held that the 6th Amendment requires states to give poor felony defendants what?

A lawyer had been refused to Clarence Gideon, who wrote his appeal to the Supreme Court in pencil on prison stationery. At his retrial, with counsel, the jury acquitted him in an hour.

Which part of the original Constitution sets out how amendments are proposed and ratified?

Article V also put one subject off limits for a time: until 1808, no amendment could interfere with the importation of slaves.

Which activist's STOP ERA campaign helped leave the Equal Rights Amendment three states short of ratification?

Phyllis Schlafly warned that the measure would expose women to the military draft, the argument one scholar calls the most powerful used against it. Thirty states had ratified by 1973.

The three amendments ratified between 1865 and 1870, in the wake of the Civil War, are named after which era?

Reconstruction amendments were meant to guarantee the freedom of formerly enslaved people. Their promise was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions through the late 1800s.

Which president, in office when Congress proposed the two-term limit, was specifically exempted from it?

Harry S. Truman started a campaign in 1952 anyway, then withdrew after a poor showing in the New Hampshire primary. An exemption in the text spared whoever held office when the measure went to the states.

Which state voted to ratify the amendment abolishing slavery only in 1995 and filed the paperwork in 2013?

Mississippi was the last of the states that existed in 1865 to approve the measure. Its certification in 2013 completed the full set 148 years after slavery was abolished.

The amendment that abolished slavery still permits forced labor in which one circumstance, written into its text?

As punishment for crime, forced labor stayed legal, and the exception drew almost no debate when the text was drafted. It still allows convicted prisoners to be required to work.

Which 1919 law, passed over Woodrow Wilson's veto, enforced the amendment that banned intoxicating liquors?

The Volstead Act counted any drink above 0.5 percent alcohol as intoxicating. An Anti-Saloon League lobbyist drafted it, and it took its name from the congressman who managed the bill.

Which 1857 Supreme Court ruling, denying citizenship to Black Americans, was overturned by a post-Civil War amendment?

Dred Scott v. Sandford is widely considered the worst decision in the Supreme Court's history. Congress and the states answered it in 1868 by guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born on American soil.

Which clause of the 1st Amendment stops the government from setting up or sponsoring an official religion?

The Establishment Clause lies behind the wall of separation between church and state that Thomas Jefferson described in an 1802 letter. Its partner clause protects religious practice.

A Texas student revived the amendment ratified 202 years late after his 1982 paper on it earned which grade?

A C was all Gregory Watson's teaching assistant would give the paper, so he set out to prove his point by writing to lawmakers in state after state. His instructor signed a grade change in 2017.

Who was acting president for about eight hours in 1985 while Ronald Reagan had surgery under general anesthesia?

George H. W. Bush held the powers from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m., following the hand-over steps in the presidential disability amendment. Reagan's letter avoided citing it, wary of setting a precedent.

The 15th Amendment bars denying the vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of what?

Servitude here means slavery: the 15th Amendment of 1870 protected the votes of Black men freed after the Civil War. Republicans proposed it as a compromise after rejecting more sweeping versions.

Justice Arthur Goldberg argued in a 1965 contraception case that the 9th Amendment supports which unlisted right?

Privacy within marriage, Goldberg wrote, was a fundamental right, and the 9th Amendment showed that such unlisted rights exist. The amendment had played so small a part in the courts that academics called it forgotten.

The 7th Amendment preserves jury trials in which kind of case, provided more than twenty dollars is at stake?

Civil lawsuits in federal courts still carry the twenty-dollar threshold, despite two centuries of inflation. Unlike most of the Bill of Rights, the 7th Amendment has never been applied to the states.

Which 1793 Supreme Court ruling, letting a South Carolina estate sue another state, did the 11th Amendment overrule?

Chisholm v. Georgia, decided 4–1, alarmed the states so much that Congress passed the 11th Amendment about a year later. It is considered the Court's earliest case of real significance.

Which route for proposing amendments, triggered by two-thirds of the state legislatures, has never been used?

A national convention has never been called, so every amendment sent to the states so far has come from Congress, by a two-thirds vote in both houses.