SECTION IV: The Amendments
In the nearly two and a half centuries of its existence, the Constitution has been amended only 27
times - and ten of those amendments happened so quickly that they are, for all intents, part of the
original document. This section addresses why and how the Constitution has been amended since its
late 18th century ratification.
Other sections of KTBB Constitution Minute:
Prologue: Articles of Confederation || Section 1:
Constitutional Covention ||
Section 2: Ratification || Section 3: Creating the Bill of Rights || Section
4: The Amendments || Section 5: The Courts and the Landmark Decisions ||
Section 6: The Present Day || Section 7: The Founding
Fathers
Episode 63: 1st Amendment - The Establishment Clause
The desire for religious freedom long predated the establishment of English colonies on the North American continent. So it is not surprising that religious freedom would be the subject of the first amendment to the Constitution. Listen to Episode 63
Episode 64: 1st Amendment - Freedom of Speech
Freedom of speech, and its natural extension, freedom of the press, are often taken for granted and often misunderstood. Listen to Episode 64
Episode 65: 4th Amendment - Secure in
Their Houses
The 4th Amendment to the Constitution has its roots in English Common Law dating to the early 17th century. Prior to that time in England, the home of anyone could be entered at any time by officers of the Crown to search for untaxed goods, or for writings and papers unfavorable to the king. Listen to Episode 65
Episode 66: 4th Amendment - Right to Privacy
The 4th Amendment was originally construed to pertain to the right to be free of unwarranted intrusion by government into the homes of American citizens. But a 1967 Supreme Court decision served to extend the 4th Amendment to cover unwarranted intrusion into such things as telephone conversations. Listen to Episode 66
Episode 67: 4th Amendment -
Carpenter v. United States
The 4th Amendment as written says that our houses, papers and effects are protected against unreasonable searches by the government. But Justice Potter Stewart spoke for the majority in Supreme Court in saying that the 4th Amendment extends to persons, and not just places and things. Listen to Episode 67
Episode 68: The 2nd Amendment - Keep & Bear
Arms
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution traces its roots to the English Bill of Rights of 1689, a response to the perceived excesses of King James II, whose practice it was to disarm those who dared speak against him. Listen to Episode 68
Episode 69: 2nd Amendment - The Heller
Decision
For most of its history, the 2nd Amendment was the subject of little controversy. Only in the 20th and 21st centuries has its meaning been vigorously contested. The largest point of contention centers on one point of punctuation. Listen to Episode 69
Episode 70: 1st Amendment - More on the Establishment
Clause
We take religious freedom in America for granted today, but it wasn't always so. Listen to Episode 70
Episode 71: 1st Amendment - The Free Exercise Clause
A Mormon living in what was at the time the Territory of Utah and who took a second wife, was catalytic in a Supreme Court decision that put specific limits on the concept of free exercise of religion. Listen to Episode 71
Episode 72: 1st Amendment - More on Freedom of Speech
A Supreme Court 1st Amendment decision taken during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s makes it extremely difficult for an elected official to take legal action against a citizen or organization who speaks out against him. Listen to Episode 72
Episode 73: 1st Amendment - Freedom of the
Press
There has always been tension between government and what we now call the news media. In the American Colonies, publishing material critical of the British government could land you in jail. Fresh memory of that fact led directly to the language regarding a free press in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Listen to Episode 73
Episode 74: 6th Amendment - Trial By Jury
Borrowing from English Common Law, the 1st Amendment to the Constitution established juries of ordinary citizens, as opposed to relying solely on the judgement of a magistrate, as essential to the process of trying defendants for alleged criminal acts. Listen to Episode 74
Episode 75: 6th Amendment - The Notice Clause
The Notice Clause of the 6th Amendment, as it has come to be called, requires the government to spell out the entirety of its case against a defendant all at once, such that the accused can assert double jeopardy if the government fails to win a conviction in its first attempt at prosecution. Listen to Episode 75
Episode 76: 6th Amendment - The Confrontation
Clause
The "Confrontation Clause"of the 6th Amendment to the Constitution traces its roots to Biblical times. Simply put, the victim of a crime cannot level allegations anonymously. The victim must confront the accused face to face. Listen to Episode 76
Episode 77: 6th Amendment - The Compulsory Process Clause
Prior to the 17th century, a defendant in a criminal trial didn't have the right to call witnesses and, indeed, didn't have the right to specific knowledge of the evidence against him. The Confrontation Clause gives defendants the right to compel those with knowledge of evidence that favors a defendant to provide that evidence at trial. Listen to Episode 77
Episode 78 - 8th Amendment - Cruel & Unusual Punishment
With no intention to do so, an English priest who lived in the late 17th century became the de facto author of the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Listen to Episode 78
Episode 79 - 10th Amendment
The 10th Amendment does not alter the original text of the Constitution in the slightest. But it was put forth by the 1st Congress of the United States and incorporated into what would come to be called the Bill of Rights in order to more explicitly set forth the limitations that the Constitution places upon the federal government. Listen to Episode 79
Episode 80 - 5th Amendment - Self
Incrimination
The 5th Amendment is best known for its language that protects criminal defendants from self-incrimination. The self-incrimination clause is the product of more than 300 years of evolution in English Common Law. Listen to Episode 80
Episode 81 - 5th Amendment - Grand Jury
Though the 5th Amendment is best known for its “self-incrimination” clause, it is the actual first clause of the text that most directly sets the foundation for criminal prosecutions in the United States. Listen to Episode 81
Episode 82 - 5th Amendment - The Takings Clause
In medieval England, if the king wanted your land for what he considered to be the good of the kingdom, he simply took it. The Magna Carta was the first step in stopping that practice, and it informs the 5th Amendment's prohibition against the taking of property by government without just cause and just compensation. Listen to Episode 82
Episode 83 - 10th Amendment - Not an Amendment
at All
In the strictest sense, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution isn't an amendment at all. It does not modify, nullify or add to any of the original language of the Constitution. Listen to Episode 83
Episode 88 - 14th Amendment
As a direct result of the much-criticized decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Congress passed and the states ratified the 14th Amendment, which, among other things confers citizenship on anyone born in the United States. Viewed as one of the most consequential of the amendments, the 14th Amendment continues to be controversial more than a century and a half after its adoption. Listen to Episode 88
Episode 90 - 17th Amendment
The Founders originally intended that the House of Representatives represent the people with members to be elected to two-year terms by popular vote, while the Senate would represent the states and be elected to six-year terms by the respective state legislatures. But by the late 19th century, calls arose to elect senators by popular vote, which led to the adoption of the 17th Amendment in 1913. Listen to Episode 90
Episode 91 - 27th Amendment
Twelve proposed amendments to the Constitution were put forth by James Madison in 1789. Ten of them were ratified and came to be called the Bill of Rights. But one of those original proposed amendments that wasn't ratified languished for nearly 200 years, until a student at the University of Texas took up its cause. Listen to Episode 91
Episode 95 - 25th Amendment - Presidential Succession
When President William Henry Harrison died in 1841 after only 31 days in office, Vice President John Tyler became president. Or did he? Article II, Section 6 of the Constitution said that the vice president assumed the duties of the president. It would take until 1967 and the ratification of the 25th Amendment to clear the matter up. Listen to Episode 95
Episode 96 - 19th Amendment - Women's Suffrage
The original text of the Constitution says nothing about who has the right to vote. The right to vote - suffrage as its called - was left to the states. Even though some of the British-American colonies had permitted women's suffrage, by 1807 women could not vote in any of the United States. It would take until the early 20th century for that to change. Listen to Episode 96
Episode 97 - 12th Amendment - Presidential Election
When George Washington declined a third term as president in 1796, the United States held its first competitive presidential election. That contest between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson revealed a weakness in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which led to the ratification of the 12th Amendment. Listen to Episode 97
Episode 98 - 26th Amendment - Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote
By the end of the turbulent 1960s, support for the War in Vietnam had collapsed. There was growing unrest among draft-age males and their families who faced conscription to fight in a war that no longer had majority support. The minimum draft age then, as it is now, was 18. But the minimum age to vote in elections that would impact U.S. policy was 21. “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” became a rallying cry that led to the ratification of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, which lowered the minimum voting age for all elections in the United States to 18. Listen to Episode 98
Episode 100 - 15th Amendment - Conscience & Politics
The 15th Amendment was the product of conscience, to be certain. There was widespread conviction that if former slaves were to be truly free, they must have the right to vote. But politics weighed in as well. The citizenship granted to former slaves under the 14th Amendment dramatically increased the representation of southern states- overwhelmingly Democratic - in the House of Representatives. Republicans, led by President Ulysses S. Grant, thus promoted the 15th Amendment, in the hope that they could attract the votes for former slaves. Listen to Episode 100
Episode 103 - 16th Amendment - The Income Tax
The language of Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution served to prohibit the levying of a tax on individual income. However, the costs attendant to the Civil War led to the Revenue Act of 1862, which did just that. The act passed constitutional muster because it was interpreted to be an emergency wartime measure and was only valid for ten years. But the income tax that imposed proved to be quite lucrative, and by the late 19th century the political climate became favorable to what would become the 16th Amendment, which enabled the income tax that we all pay today. Listen to Episode 103
Episode 108 - 22nd Amendment - Presidential Term Limits
As his second term as president was drawing to a close, George Washington was weary and in declining health. When he declined the opportunity for a third term as president, he set the precedent for two-term presidencies that we follow today. But it wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that a limit on presidential terms became a part of the Constitution. Listen to Episode 108
Episode 110 - 7th Amendment
The seventh is regarded as the most straightforward of all 27 amendments (save, perhaps for the 21st Amendment that repealed the 18th Amendment.) However, its provision for the right to a jury trial in a civil lawsuit is a pillar of American law. Listen to Episode 110
Episode 115: 8th Amendment - Excessive Fines
The Constitution is rooted in English Common Law the Founders were accordingly mindful of the historic excesses of the English monarch. From that mindfulness arose the language in the Eighth Amendment regarding excessive fines. Listen to Episode 115
Episode 122: 13th Amendment
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. But by April 1864, with the Civil War still raging, Lincoln was concerned that the proclamation would not withstand an eventual court challenge. So, at his urging, Congress passed what would go on to become the 13th Amendment, which would outlaw slavery in the United States. Listen to Episode 122
Episode 125 - Difficult to Amend
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 recognized that for it to last, a mechanism for amending the Constitution would be needed. But they also recognized that the Constitution needed protection from too frequent change driven by the political passions of the moment. Listen to Episode 125