The effectiveness of Article V to safely and peacefully amend our Constitution is a well-established reality. We have successfully amended the Constitution twenty-seven times. Those amendments enshrine personal liberty in our Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10), Outline federal limits judicially (Amendment 11), Reform Presidential election process (Amendment 12), and correct state attempts to curtail rights for some citizens (Amendments 13-15).
It was not until Amendments 16 and 17 (passed in 1913), that Congress began to claw away at individual liberty with a direct tax on income (forbidden by the original Constitution) and moving the U.S. Senate from a representative of states to a powerful superseding democracy body controlled by high population centers that could override state authority.
With Congress having direct authority to levy taxes on individuals, the control of wealth was transferred from those earning it to those spending it. I am still amazed that so few people grasp the reality of this enormous power shift.
Amendment 17 took a further step to centralize federal power by having Senators elected by statewide voting rather than State Legislature appointment. This idea started around 1908 but did not gain the required two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress until 1912. The proponents of this change sold it to the public on the idea that powerful special interests within state governments were taking power from the people by not allowing them to vote for who would represent them in the US Senate.
On the basis of increasing citizen input on government the amendment was ratified by the required three-fourths of state legislatures. What it became was something entirely different than how it was presented. Large population centers with well organized political parties were able to have much more influence of selection of Senators than they had under the previous system. In other words, the reality has become the exact opposite of what it was claimed to be.
Amendment 18 installed prohibition and launched the largest criminal syndicates in history to their greatest power supplying bootleg whiskey. This amendment was a colossal failure from the beginning, but was not repealed for fourteen years, in 1933 by Amendment 21.
Between the birth and death of prohibition, Amendment 20 changed the time for beginning presidential terms from March to January. This shortened the time between November elections and Inaugurations.
Amendments 22-26 were added between 1951 and 1971 and covered needed changes.
- Amendment 22 limits Presidents to two terms. This resulted to FDR having been elected four times.
- Amendment 23 granted presidential electors to the District of Columbia.
- Amendment 24 outlawed poll taxes which had been used in some states to exclude minorities from voting.
- Amendment 25 deals with the process of temporary suspension and restoration of a President for incapacity.
- Amendment 26 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.
Amendment 27 holds the record for the longest running ratification journey of all. The limitation of Congressional pay raised was proposed with the Bill of Rights in 1789. By 1792 only six states had ratified the amendment, but since it had no expiration date, the measure was still alive and sat dormant for 190 years. In 1982, Gregory Watson, a sophomore at the University of Texas submitted a paper proposing to seek additional ratification votes in states. Despite receiving a C grade on the paper, Watson launched a self-financed effort and began writing to state officials to ask them to ratify the amendment. Finally, in May of 1992, Maine became the thirty-eighth state to ratify the amendment, and it sits as the last Amendment to our Constitution.
This detailed listing of amendments is intended to show that throughout our history, the Constitution has been amended many times, and whether we personally agree with some amendments, the fact remains that Article V of the Constitution has been used to allow peaceful adjustments to our government. There is no reason to doubt the safety or efficacy of Article V process in securing needed changes to the Constitution.
Why then have we only used one of two methods for proposing amendments that Article V contains? Congress is clearly authorized to “propose” amendments that must then be ratified by the people of the states either through their legislatures, or state conducted conventions. Twenty-six of the twenty-seven amendments have been ratified by state legislatures. Only Amendment 21- repealing prohibition was put out for ratification by state conventions rather than legislatures. That move was so state lawmakers could avoid taking responsibility for opening up the bars and saloons.
The Article V provision for states to call for a convention of states to propose amendments has been often attempted. In fact, thousands of resolutions by state legislatures to have an amendment convention have been issued, but the required two-thirds of states has never been reached for a given subject or proposed amendment. Many of the Amendments proposed by Congress began as state resolution efforts, but we adopted by Congress before the required states acted. Primary examples of these are prohibition and its repeal, presidential term limits and lowering the voting age.
Here is the exact text of Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
The final sentences of Article V prohibit amendments regarding slavery until 1808, and bar any amendment denying equal state representation in the Senate.
The seventy-eight words of Article V dealing with amendment process are complete instructions for making changes to the Constitution. There is no reasonable person who believes the amendment process is flawed in any way.
The catch is however that objection is raised continually to the following 20 words:
…”or on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…”
Why is opposition so strenuous against states proposing amendments? The simple truth is that given the entrenched power structure of the federal government, Congress is never going to propose amendments to limit the power and wealth of the federal bureaucracy.
We will never see an amendment to limit congressional or judicial terms, balance the federal budget, reduce regulatory strangulation, or curtail the burgeoning debt. There is simply too much power, money, and influence at stake to allow that to happen. That is why the framers included the state convention option to propose amendments. That option needs to be used as soon as possible. For more information and details about this powerful tool that remains within our grasp, there is a wealth of resources available at www.conventionofstates.com.