Article Five of the United States Constitution

**Article Five of the United States Constitution** outlines how the Constitution can be changed. Changes to the Constitution are called Constitutional amendments.

Article Five also says that there are certain , or parts, of Article One of the Constitution that could not be amended right away.  These clauses are explained in the "Protected clauses" section.

## Text
## Background
Before the Constitution was approved, the United States was covered by its first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.  Not only did every state legislature have to agree on the amendment.  If a single state Senator or Representative in the country disagreed with an amendment, the amendment would fail.  This made it basically impossible to get any amendments passed.

In Simple English, Madison meant that the amendment process protects equally against:
* The process being so easy that the Constitution would constantly be changing; and
* The process being so hard that problems in the Constitution could never be changed.

## Step 1: Proposing an amendment
There are two steps in the process for changing the Constitution.  The first step is proposing ( suggesting) an amendment.  Article Five of the Constitution allows this to be done in two different ways.

The first way is the most common way.  Any member of Congress can suggest an amendment.  However, two-thirds (67%) of both the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives have to agree that the amendment is needed.  If this happens, the proposed amendment moves to Step 2 in the process.

## Step 2: Ratifying the amendment
Step 2 starts when an amendment has been proposed, either by Congress or by a Constitutional Convention.  The proposed amendment now has to be ratified.  Like with Step 1, Article Five gives two choices for how an amendment can be ratified.  Congress gets to choose which way to use.  A large majority of the people in the United States wanted the 21st Amendment to pass.  However, Congress thought the state legislators would refuse to pass the amendment because of  from powerful groups that were against alcohol.
* Members of Congress have suggested about 11,539 amendments to the Constitution
* Congress has approved 33 (or 0.028%) of the suggested amendments, and sent them to the states for ratification
* The states have ratified 27 (or 81%) of the amendments sent to them, making them part of the Constitution

## Protected clauses
Article Five protects two clauses in Article One from being amended until 1808.  These clauses are:
* Section 9, Clause 1, which said Congress could not make laws that would make it harder to import slaves
* Section 9, Clause 4, which said the amount of taxes a person paid would depend on the number of people in their state

Article Five also puts one absolute limit on Constitutional amendments.  It completely protects Section 3, Clause 1 of Article One.  This clause says that every state will have the same number of United States Senators.  It does not set a time limit on how long this clause is protected for.  It just says: "no state, without its , shall be  of its equal suffrage in the Senate."  In its decision, the Court wrote: "[T]he President ... has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution."  However, the Supreme Court cannot create an amendment either.

This is an example of the separation of powers (also called "checks and balances") that the Founding Fathers built into the new American government.  If the President or the Supreme Court could change the Constitution any time they wanted to, they would have too much power.  One person (or nine Supreme Court Justices) could make decisions that would affect every American.

### Checks and balances in Article Five
Instead, the Founders gave the job of creating Constitutional amendments to the Legislative Branch.  By requiring that two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and three-quarters of the states, approve of every Constitutional amendment, they made sure that there would have to be a lot of debate, compromise, and thought before an amendment was approved.  Also, because so many legislators have to approve every amendment, it is very difficult for small "special interest" groups (like people who only care about a certain part of the country, or a certain issue) cannot control the vote.  This meant they would not be a part of the new United States Government.  In 1789, James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights.  They were ratified together, as the first ten amendments to the Constitution, in 1791.  Having a Bill of Rights convinced North Carolina and Rhode Island to ratify the Constitution.

The amendments process set out in Article Five has allowed for many other important amendments to be added to the Constitution.  For example, these amendments have included:
* The Thirteenth Amendment (1865), which made slavery illegal
* The Fourteenth Amendment (1868), which said that all people born in the United States are United States citizens (this included ex-slaves)
* The Fifteenth Amendment (1870), which gave men of all races the right to vote
* The Nineteenth Amendment (1920), which gave women the right to vote

## References