The Constitution of the United States is often heralded as the bedrock of American society. Crafted carefully, it has served as the guiding framework for the nation since its ratification in 1789...
Category - The Constitutional Amendments
The Sixteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution establishes a federal income tax. There had only been one tax of this type before, to pay for the Civil War, and it was canceled not long after the end...
The Fifteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Fifteenth Amendment to the US Constitution gave African American men, including those who had been former slaves, the right to vote. While the amendment seemed simple, the US Supreme Court has...
The Fourteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Fourteenth Amendment is the second of the three so-called Civil War (or Reconstruction) amendments. It is also one of the amendments most frequently cited in US case law. It was adamantly opposed...
The Thirteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution is the first of three so-called Civil War amendments, added to the Constitution right after the end of the war, to ensure the former slaves maintained...
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the US Constitution was proposed by the first Congress in 1789, but wasn’t adopted to the Constitution until 1992. The amendment is simple, and deals with...
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution changed the legal voting age in the United States from twenty-one to eighteen. The reason for this was the military draft in WWII and Vietnam that...
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is the amendment that tells how the office of the President of the United States is to be handled if the President dies or is disabled while in office, and also gives the...
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution made the use of the poll tax as a requirement to register to vote unconstitutional. After the Civil War, many of the southern states enacted poll...
The Twenty-Third Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Third Amendment gives the citizens of Washington, D.C. the right to vote in US Presidential elections, and also gives the city its own slate of electors in the Electoral College. This is...
The Twenty-Second Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Twenty-Second Amendment to the US Constitution sets term limits for the US President, as well as some other qualifications for being elected to that office. This issue had been discussed as far...
The Twenty-First Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. The 18th Amendment was adopted in 1919 and made manufacturing, transporting, and selling alcohol illegal at the federal level. The amendment proved...
The Twentieth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The 20th amendment to the US Constitution changed the inauguration dates for the President, Vice-President, and members of Congress. The date was changed from March to January, with Congress being...
The Nineteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution is the one that gives women the right to vote at the federal level, and prohibits states from denying women the right to vote at the state or federal level...
The Eighteenth Amendment: The Constitutional Amendments
The Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was the infamous one that established Prohibition—the ban on the production, transportation, and sale of alcohol in the United States. Temperance...