The following steps must be taken before an amendment to the U.S. Constitution proposed by Congress can be added. Proposed amendment: Resolution proposing the nineteenth amendment. The twenty-seven amendments have two objectives: to protect the freedoms of the people and to amend the original codes of the Constitution. (3) Constitutional amendments that were rejected – but which could just as easily have been adopted in practice. There are a few examples, but the clearest is the Equal Rights Amendment (the “ERA”), which would have prohibited federal and state governments from denying equal rights based on sex. Congress approved the amendment, but not enough states did, so it never became part of the Constitution. But the Supreme Court has interpreted other parts of the Constitution to prevent discrimination based on sex, and today it is difficult to see how the law would be any different if the ERA had been formally incorporated into the Constitution. Sometimes society changes, resulting in changes in the way constitutional rights are enforced. For example, originally, only white men could participate in federal elections.

Due to a booming middle class at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, society focused on expanding the rights of the middle and working class. As a result, the right to vote was extended to more and more people. However, formal recognition of the rights of poor white and black men, and later women, was not fully ensured until the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and the Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Thus, Article V of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1788, prohibited all constitutional amendments prior to 1808 that would affect the foreign slave trade, the slave trade tax, or the direct imposition of the provisions of the Constitution. Nor can any amendment affect the equal representation of states in the Senate without the consent of a state. As mentioned earlier, the Constitution requires that at least two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate present approve a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), the Supreme Court ruled that it is not necessary to submit constitutional amendments to the president for signature, and that, by the same logic, the president is powerless to veto a proposed constitutional amendment. How does the constitutional amendment process reflect the objectives of the drafters? Wanted a government that governs the people, represents them and has the power to make government decisions. .

To avoid an absolute government rule similar to British rule. The President has no formal role in the constitutional amendment process. Article 1 provides that “any order, resolution or vote that may require the consent of the Senate and the House of Representatives (except in the event of adjournment) shall be submitted to the President of the United States; and before the same thing comes into force, whether it is approved by him or rejected by him, whether she is re-elected by two-thirds of the Senate and the House of Representatives. A classic example of this was demonstrated from the late 1890s. Meanwhile, a move to amend the Constitution to provide for the direct election of U.S. senators has led to such proposals regularly passing through the House of Representatives, only to die in the Senate. Over time, more and more state legislators have passed resolutions calling for the convening of a convention. In response to this pressure, the Senate eventually relented, approving what later became the Seventeenth Amendment, fearing that such a convention — if allowed to meet — would deviate to address issues beyond the direct election of U.S. senators.

Article V of the United States Constitution outlines the basic procedures for constitutional amendment. The Great Compromise (also known as the Connecticut Compromise) was an agreement reached by the large and small states at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. In part, the agreement defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the U.S. Constitution. He called for bicameral legislation as well as proportional representation in the House of Commons, but demanded that the upper house be balanced fairly among states. This agreement led to the three-fifths compromise, which meant that the less populous southern states were allowed to count three-fifths of all non-free people for censuses and population allowances. Unfortunately, this method of change is broken. Many people who advocate constitutional amendments that would restrict the federal government are still not willing to use this method because they fear a so-called out-of-control convention — a convention that is called upon to propose changes on one subject, but then proposes them on other issues. For example, state legislators could ask a convention to adopt a balanced budget change, but the convention could then decide to propose an amendment that allows school prayer.

If at least two-thirds of state legislatures so request, Congress is required to convene a convention to propose amendments. This provision, many scholars argue, controls Congress` power to limit possible constitutional changes. State legislatures have used their power in the past to request a national convention to pressure Congress to propose a desired change. Finally, while determining how to amend the Constitution, Article V has made two things immutable – even during the difficult process of amendment. The first is that “no state may be deprived of its equal right to vote in the Senate without its consent.” Thus, each state will have the same number of senators, regardless of how many members of Congress or other states want to change that part of our system (unless a state agrees to accept a smaller number of senators). .