Constitution

Article V: Amending the Constitution

Article V sets two ways to propose amendments, by Congress or a convention of the states, and requires ratification by three-fourths of the states.

4Conservative Editors · Published November 8, 2026

The text

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.

In plain English

Article V creates a four-way path to amendment, with two steps: proposal and ratification.

Proposal. An amendment may be proposed either (1) by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or (2) by a convention called by Congress on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, which today means 34 states.

Ratification. In either case, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution when ratified by three-fourths of the states, now 38. Congress chooses the method: ratification by state legislatures, or by special state conventions. Every amendment but one (the 21st, repealing Prohibition) has been ratified by legislatures.

Limits. Until 1808, no amendment could touch the slave-trade clause or the direct-tax clause; that deadline has passed. One limit remains: no state may be deprived of its "equal Suffrage in the Senate" without its consent.

The President has no formal role. An amendment does not go to the White House for signature.

The design is deliberately hard. It is meant to keep the Constitution from changing at the pace of ordinary politics, while keeping change possible when the people, through their states, truly want it.

What the Founders said

The Convention adopted Article V late and with little dispute. George Mason argued on September 15, 1787 that the original plan, which allowed amendments only through Congress, was dangerous. If Congress itself became oppressive, he said, it would not propose the amendments needed to restrain it. The Convention therefore added the second route, a convention at the states' request.

Madison, in Federalist No. 43, defended the Article as striking a balance: it "guards equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults." That sentence is the best short account of the Article's purpose.

Federalist No. 85, the last of the series, closed with Hamilton's appeal to the amendment process as proof that adoption of the Constitution need not wait for perfection.

How the courts have read it

  • Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798): the President's signature is not needed for a proposed amendment.
  • Hawke v. Smith (1920): a state's ratification must be by the legislature, as Congress directs; a popular referendum could not replace it.
  • National Prohibition Cases (1920): a two-thirds vote means two-thirds of the members present, and the 18th Amendment was validly adopted.
  • Dillon v. Gloss (1921): Congress may set a reasonable time limit for ratification.
  • Coleman v. Miller (1939): questions about ratification, including a state's change of mind and the timeliness of ratification, are political questions for Congress.
  • Idaho v. Freeman (1981): the court below ruled on the Equal Rights Amendment's ratification deadline; the Supreme Court later vacated the decision as moot.

Why it matters now

Article V is the Constitution's own answer to complaints that it is outdated or hard to change. The answer is that it has been amended twenty-seven times, and that its difficulty is a feature. Change that cannot muster two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the states has not earned the standing of a constitutional rule.

That standard also applies to judicial innovation. If a new meaning is to be found in the Constitution, the conservative view is that the people should adopt it in the way Article V describes, not that judges should discover it. When courts amend the Constitution by interpretation, they bypass the one process the Constitution lays out for its own revision.

The state-initiated convention route has never been used. Interest in it has grown among those who want constitutional limits on federal spending or terms of office, and critics worry about a convention exceeding its mandate. Both sides raise serious points, and the question deserves open, careful debate.

Latest on this topic