CHAPTER XVIII.. Amendments to the Constitution.

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION.

Methods of Amending the Constitution.--We have already considered the effect of amendments on some of the original clauses. It now remains to consider, briefly, the methods of amending the Constitution and a few other provisions found in the amendments. Article V provides for amendments as follows:--

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Thus, amendments may be proposed in either of two ways: by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress; or by a National convention called by Congress for that purpose on the application of two-thirds of the State legislatures. The convention method has never been used in proposing amendments to this Constitution.

Amendments may also be ratified in two ways: by the legislatures in three-fourths of the several States; or by conventions in three-fourths thereof. Congress has always selected the first of these methods.

Amending the Constitution Difficult.--That it is difficult to amend the Constitution may be seen when we consider that some two thousand amendments have been proposed in an official way. During a single session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, fifty amendments, on twenty different phases of government, were proposed in one or other of the houses of Congress.

Amendment XIII.--The purpose of the first ten amendments has already been noted on p. 112.

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were the results of negro slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to all of the slaves in the States then in rebellion. There were some States, however, as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, where slavery might still exist legally. In order to be rid of this institution altogether, Congress proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which is as follows:--

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It was declared a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865.

Amendment XIV.--This amendment was proposed by Congress, June 16, 1866, as a part of the general plan for reconstruction. The Southern States were not to be regarded as a part of the Union until they should ratify it. The entire amendment, given in Appendix A, should be read. Sections 1 and 2, however, contain the most important provisions.