Prompt Cast
The Difficult Process of Amending the United States Constitution
TLDR Amending the United States Constitution is a challenging process, requiring approval from two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures. Many proposed amendments have failed to be ratified, including the 27th amendment which took 202 years to be ratified and the 12th amendment which is still pending.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
The United States Constitution has a specific process for amending the document, with Congress voting to approve the amendment and then sending it to state legislatures for ratification.
01:49
The process of amending the United States Constitution is intentionally difficult, with two-thirds of Congress and three-quarters of state legislatures needing to approve an amendment, resulting in many proposed amendments failing to be ratified.
03:23
The 27th amendment took 202 years to be ratified, and the 12th amendment is still pending.
05:09
The 10th amendment proposed increasing the number of members in the House of Representatives, and the Titles of Nobility Amendment was created in response to Napoleon Bonaparte's brother wanting his son to have French aristocratic titles while still being an American citizen.
07:00
The Corwin amendment, passed in 1861, aimed to prevent the abolition of slavery and would have blocked the passage of the 13th and 14th amendments, but only five states ever ratified it and two of those states have since rescinded their ratification.
08:54
The child labor amendment, passed in 1924, did not have a timer for ratification and has become moot due to federal regulation, while the Equal Rights Amendment and the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment both had deadlines for ratification that were not met by the states.
10:34
There are still four unratified amendments that theoretically could still be ratified, including the Congressional Apportionment Amendment, the Titles of Nobility Amendment, the Corwin Amendment, and the Child Labor Amendment.
