Article V sets out the only formal route for changing the words of the Constitution. It splits the process into two stages, proposal and ratification, and each stage can happen in one of two ways.
Figure 2: the two stages of the Article V amendment process, showing which routes have actually been used.
| Stage | Method | Threshold required | How often used |
| Proposal | Vote in Congress | Two-thirds majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate | Used for all 27 ratified amendments |
| Proposal | National convention | Called if requested by two-thirds of state legislatures (34 of 50) | Never used |
| Ratification | State legislatures | Approval by three-quarters of state legislatures (38 of 50) | Used for 26 of the 27 ratified amendments |
| Ratification | State ratifying conventions | Approval by three-quarters of specially elected state conventions (38 of 50) | Used only once, for the Twenty-first Amendment (1933) |
Table 3: the four possible routes through the Article V amendment process.
The figures in Table 3 show just how narrow the realistic route through Article V actually is.
- Only one of the four possible paths, proposal by Congress followed by ratification by state legislatures, has been used regularly. The other three routes are either unused or have been used only once.
- A proposed amendment can be blocked by a minority as small as thirteen states refusing to ratify, or by just over one third of either chamber of Congress refusing to propose it.
- Almost 12,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, yet only 27 have cleared both stages, a ratification rate of well under one per cent.
- The gap between proposal and success can also be a gap in time: the Twenty-seventh Amendment, on congressional pay, took just over 202 years to be ratified after Madison first proposed it in 1789.
Examples of key constitutional amendments – here
Advantages of the formal amendment process
- It gives the Constitution democratic legitimacy, since any lasting change needs supermajority support in Congress and across a wide range of states, not just a temporary simple majority.
- It protects individual rights and the interests of smaller states from being overridden by a temporary national majority, since ratification requires broad, geographically spread agreement.
- It produces amendments that tend to enjoy lasting legitimacy, supported by both major parties, once ratified. Neither the Nineteenth Amendment (1920, women’s suffrage) nor the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971, lowering the voting age) has been seriously challenged for repeal.
- It keeps the core structure of government stable and predictable, which supporters argue has helped the Constitution survive for well over two centuries without a full rewrite.
Disadvantages of the formal amendment process
- It makes the Constitution very difficult to update, even when there is broad public support for change, since a well-organised minority in just thirteen states can block ratification.
- It has left some Founding-era provisions largely untouched by formal amendment, so much constitutional change instead happens informally through Supreme Court interpretation rather than through the more democratically visible Article V process.
- It has repeatedly failed to entrench popular reforms, including the Equal Rights Amendment, the Balanced Budget Amendment and the Flag Desecration Amendment, despite each attracting significant public and congressional support at different times.
- It gives disproportionate blocking power to small states, since the thirteen least populous states, representing a small fraction of the national population, can theoretically block ratification on their own.
| Analysis | Evaluation |
| The formal amendment process protects the states and political minorities by requiring broad, supermajority consent for constitutional change.This is exactly what entrenchment is designed to do, but it also explains why the Constitution has been amended so rarely compared with how often it has been proposed. | If a constitution’s purpose is stability and protection from short-term majorities, Article V‘s difficulty is a success: the core 1787 structure has survived major social and economic change.But if a constitution’s purpose is to let society’s changing attitudes be reflected in the text, the process looks far less successful.The repeated failure of amendments such as the Equal Rights Amendment suggests it has become too difficult to use as the Founding Fathers may have intended. |
| Check your understanding 1. Outline the two stages of the Article V amendment process and the possible methods for each. You could: use Table 3 above to structure your answer stage by stage, noting which route has actually been used in practice. 2. Explain two disadvantages of the formal amendment process, using named examples of amendments that failed to be ratified. You could: choose two examples from the disadvantages list above, such as the Equal Rights Amendment and the Flag Desecration Amendment, and explain what specifically stopped each one. 3. To what extent is the US Constitution harder to amend formally than the UK constitution? Compare the supermajority and state-ratification requirements of Article V with how the UK constitution can be changed. You should: note that most of the UK constitution can be changed by a simple Act of Parliament passed by a simple majority, then use this contrast to reach a judgement on which system better balances stability against the ability to reflect change. |