Article Five Of The United States Constitution
Article Five of the United States Constitution describes the process whereby the Constitution may be altered. Altering the Constitution consists of proposing an amendment or amendments and subsequent ratification.
Amendments may be proposed by either :
- two-thirds of both houses of the United States Congress ; or
- by a national convention assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the states.
To become part of the Constitution, amendments must then be ratified either by approval of :
- the legislatures of three-fourths of the states ; or
- state ratifying conventions held in three-fourths of the states.
Congress has discretion as to which method of ratification should be used.
Any amendment so ratified becomes a valid part of the Constitution, provided that no state "shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the senate," without its consent.
Read more about Article Five Of The United States Constitution: Proposal, Ratification, Rescinding A Ratification, Deadline Imposed On Ratification Process, Proposed, But Unratified, Constitutional Amendments
Famous quotes containing the words article, united, states and/or constitution:
“Of moral purpose I see no trace in Nature. That is an article of exclusively human manufactureand very much to our credit.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)
“Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (17721801)
“The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
—Benjamin Harrison (18331901)
“What we learn for the sake of knowing, we hold; what we learn for the sake of accomplishing some ulterior end, we forget as soon as that end has been gained. This, too, is automatic action in the constitution of the mind itself, and it is fortunate and merciful that it is so, for otherwise our minds would be soon only rubbish-rooms.”
—Anna C. Brackett (18361911)