Constitutional Amendments
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50 free Constitutional Amendments trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Constitution has been amended only 27 times in more than two centuries, and each change tells a story: a crisis, a scandal, a protest movement or a long campaign that finally won. Some amendments are quoted every day in courtrooms and news reports. Others are so obscure that even law students forget what they say. This quiz covers all of them. You will match amendments to what they do, from the freedoms in the Bill of Rights to voting rights, alcohol, elections and presidential terms. Other questions look at the landmark court cases, the people behind the changes, the proposals that failed, and the rules for changing the Constitution in the first place. It is written for students revising for a civics or US history test, teachers who want a ready-made review, and anyone curious about how the country's founding document has changed. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which amendment, ratified in August 1920, stopped states from denying anyone the vote on the basis of sex?
The 19th
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.
Q 02Which amendment, the only one ever repealed, banned the manufacture, sale and transport of intoxicating liquors?
The 18th
The 18th Amendment brought in nationwide Prohibition from January 1920 and lasted not quite fourteen years. It never outlawed possessing or drinking alcohol.
Q 03Which 2012 Steven Spielberg film dramatizes the fight in Congress to pass the amendment abolishing slavery?
Lincoln
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.
Q 04Which state became the decisive 36th to ratify women's suffrage after a young legislator heeded his mother's letter?
Tennessee
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.
Q 05Whose four presidential election wins led Congress to propose the amendment capping presidents at two terms?
Franklin Roosevelt
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.
Q 06The 27th Amendment, ratified a record 202 years after Congress proposed it, delays changes to what?
Congressional pay
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.
Q 07The 3rd Amendment forbids the peacetime housing of whom in private homes without the owner's consent?
Soldiers
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.
Q 08Which amendment do witnesses invoke when they refuse to answer questions that might incriminate themselves?
The 5th
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.
Q 09The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 after protests over young men being drafted for which war?
Vietnam 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.
Q 10Who became vice president in 1973 under a new amendment, then president without being elected to either office?
Gerald Ford
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.
Q 11Which amendment, at the heart of the Supreme Court's 2008 Heller ruling, protects the right to keep and bear arms?
The 2nd
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.
Q 12Which amendment, ratified in December 1865 after the Civil War, abolished slavery across the United States?
The 13th
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.
Q 13The 16th Amendment of 1913 lets Congress collect which tax without dividing it among the states by population?
Income tax
Q 21Which amendment, rooted in colonial anger at British general warrants, forbids unreasonable searches and seizures?
The 4th
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.
Q 22Which amendment, borrowing its wording from the English Bill of Rights of 1689, bans cruel and unusual punishments?
The 8th
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.
Q 23Which 1868 amendment made people born on American soil citizens and underpinned Brown v. Board of Education?
The 14th
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.
Q 14Which 1966 Supreme Court ruling requires police to warn suspects in custody of the right to remain silent?
Miranda v. Arizona
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.
Q 15Which Bill of Rights protection stops prosecutors from retrying a defendant for the same offense after an acquittal?
Double jeopardy
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.
Q 16The women's suffrage amendment was nicknamed for which reformer, arrested in 1872 for voting in Rochester, New York?
Susan B. Anthony
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.
Q 17The 23rd Amendment gave Electoral College votes to residents of which place, who first voted for president in 1964?
Washington, D.C.
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.
Q 18Which western state supplied the 36th and deciding ratification that ended nationwide Prohibition in December 1933?
Utah
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.
Q 19Which Virginia congressman and future president drafted the Bill of Rights after at first opposing the idea?
James Madison
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.
Q 20The 1st Amendment protects religion, speech, the press, assembly and which other right, traceable to Magna Carta?
Petition
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.
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.
Q 24Which amendment ended nationwide Prohibition in December 1933 by cancelling an earlier amendment outright?
The 21st
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.
Q 25Which amendment, ratified in 1951, bars anyone from being elected president more than twice?
The 22nd
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.
Q 26After Congress proposes an amendment by a two-thirds vote, what share of the states must ratify it?
Three-fourths
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.
Q 27The 17th Amendment let voters directly elect members of which body, previously chosen by state legislatures?
The Senate
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.
Q 28The 24th Amendment outlawed which barrier to voting in federal elections, still used in five Southern states in 1964?
Poll taxes
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.
Q 29Texas v. Johnson (1989) held that the 1st Amendment protects which protest act, then illegal in 48 states?
Burning the American flag
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.
Q 30The 20th Amendment cut short which period, when defeated officials serve out their terms after an election?
Lame duck
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.