Constitutional Amendments - AP Government and Politics

The Twenty-second Amendment to the US Constitution was passed through Congress in 1947, less than two years after the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected to four terms as President. The Twenty-second Amendment was largely proposed and supported by Republicans opposed to Roosevelt and his successor Harry S. Truman. Nonetheless, by 1951, the required 36 states ratified the Amendment.

The Eighteenth Amendment, passed in 1919, prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol and represents the official beginning of the Prohibition era in American history. In 1933, fourteen years later, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and made the consumption of alcohol legal again. The Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments relate to the expansion of civil and democratic rights to freed slaves in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.

The Twenty-Third Amendment, passed in 1960, granted citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote in Presidential elections as if the district were a separate state. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale and use of alcohol, and the Twenty-First Amendment overturned it. The Nineteenth Amendment extended suffrage to women. The Twenty-Second Amendment set a term limit for the office of President to two terms.

Prior to the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Presidency was informally established with a two-term limit, based on the precedent laid down by the first President, George Washington; however, President Roosevelt served four consecutive terms, in large part due to the extraneous circumstances of the Great Depression and World War Two. In response to this, after Roosevelt died and Truman became President, Congress passed an amendment formally limiting the President to two-terms.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1920 and represented the culmination of the decades-long battle to enfranchise women in the United States. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments primarily concern the extension of voting rights, and other rights, to racial minorities. The Sixteenth regarded taxation. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibited the sale and use of alcohol.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes that the Senate should not longer be chosen by State Legislatures, but should be the result of a direct election of the people. As part of the broader historical context of the United States, it may be seen as part of the gradual extension of suffrage rights to the common man that took place over the first century or so of American history. It was passed in 1913 as the culmination of the Progressive movement, led by figures like William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated for greater faith and power being placed in the hands of the common man. The prohibition of alcohol was passed with the Eighteenth Amendment, and repealed with the Twenty-First; women were granted the same suffrage rights as men with the Nineteenth Amendment; a two-term limit was established for the President with the Twenty-Second Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1864 during the Civil War, made slavery and involuntary servitude illegal under the United States Constitution. The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Amendments are concerned with establishing equal rights to protection and suffrage for people of all races. The Sixteenth Amendment established an income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment established direct election of senators by a vote of the people.

The voting age was lowered from twenty-one to eighteen by the passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, in 1971. The movement was some thirty-odd years in the making and gained a great deal of momentum in the 1960s. After Franklin D. Roosevelt had lowered the conscription age to eighteen during World War Two, it became rather obviously unjust that young men were being sent to fight in the Vietnam War without having any electoral say in whether their country should be there in the first place. This, coupled with the civic activism displayed by students and other young people in the 1960s, pressured the political powers to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen.

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1992; it is the most recent amendment that has been made to the Constitution. It takes away the ability of Congress to regulate its own pay structure easily. Under the new amendment any changes to increase or decrease the wage of Congressmen will not come into effect until the beginning of the next term of office for representatives.

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the State and Federal governments from denying people aged eighteen to twenty-one the right to vote. Although some states already allowed eighteen-year-olds to vote, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment effectively lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. It was passed in 1971. The Twenty-First Amendment repealed prohibition; the Nineteenth Amendment gave women suffrage rights; the Twenty-Second Amendment set a two-term limit on the Presidency; the Twenty-Seventh Amendment ensures that any changes that Congress makes to raise or lower it’s own pay does not come into effect until the start of the next terms of office.

In order for an amendment to become part of the Constitution it must be ratified by three-fourths, or seventy-five percent, of the state legislatures.

The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote. The Eighth Amendment outlawed cruel and unusual punishment. The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including recently freed slaves. The Eighteenth Amendment established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, overturning prohibition laws.

There have been twenty-seven amendments to the United States Constitution. The most recent was in 1992, when an amendment was added to prevent Congress from raising its own wage immediately. Henceforth, any changes in the pay rate of Congress could only come into effect at the beginning of the next set of Congressional terms.

Originally a President had to wait four months, from November until March, to assume the Presidency once he had been elected. This led to a considerable "lame-duck" period where the outgoing President was able to get little action completed, and the incoming President could do nothing to respond to national emergencies. This was particularly pronounced during the secession of the Confederacy in 1861, when Lincoln was unable to meet the threats proposed by the Civil War; however, it was not until 1933, when Roosevelt was prevented from doing anything to counter the threat of the Great Depression, that the Twentieth Amendment enacted the change from March to January into law.

A proposed constitutional amendment becomes a part of the U.S. Constitution upon ratification by three quarters of the States. No further approval by Congress or the President is needed.

The Constitution has been amended times, with the latest Amendment ratified in 1992. The 27th amendment enacted legislation regarding congressional salaries. The 26th amendment was passed in 1971, and was concerned with voting rights.

The only amendment ever repealed was the 18th Amendment. Prohibiting the manufacture or sale of alcohol, it was ratified in 1919 and repealed in 1933.

The 17th Amendment provided for the direct election of senators. Remember, before the 17th Amendment was ratified, Senators were NOT elected by you and I; they were elected by their home state legislatures. In other words, if there happened to be an open seat for one of the senators from Georgia, the General Assembly (the state legislature of GA) would elect a particular candidate. This opened the way to large amounts of corruption and graft (a high-falutin word for bribery, essentially), and thus the 17th Amendment put the choice in the hands of the people.

The other answers are all incorrect:

• 15th: right to vote extended to all males;
• 22nd: term limits for the president;
• 24th: eliminated poll taxes;
• 19th: women get the vote

The 27th Amendment was passed in 1992 even though it had actually been submitted in 1789 by James Madison. While the Amendment was not ratified at the time, the Amendment was unique in that it did not contain a deadline for when the Amendment had to be ratified by and while states had occasionally ratified it over the years, a big push was initiated in the 1980s, which resulted in its passage. The Amendment states that if Congress raises its salary that the raise will not be implemented until the next term of the U.S. House of Representatives intervenes. The Amendment helps discourage efforts by Congress to give themselves raises because there is a chance that they will not profit from them.

This is a tricky question. Remember: the president has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the passage and ratification of a proposed amendment (two-step process, remember?). Only the states, ordinary citizens, and/or Congress are involved in the amendment process. I’ve always found that the best way to remember this is to think of vetoes; Congress can override the President (and he can do nothing about it) if both chambers corral a vote on the matter. Thus, in the amending process, if you equate the two, if makes the president superfluous; even if he were involved at all, he’d still be outgunned by Congress.