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RR 2016/009 Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues, 1789-2015 (4th edition) John R. Vile ABC-Clio Santa Barbara, CA 2015 ISBN 978 1 61069 932 7 URL: www.abc-clio.com/ABC-CLIOCorporate/ product.aspx?pc=A4554C Last visited September 2015 Contact publisher or pricing information Also available as a 2 vol. printed set (ISBN 978 1 61069 931 0 £119 $189)
Keywords Constitutional law, Encyclopedias, United States of America
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-09-2015-0226
"The constitution is sacred. At least it ought to be" said Warren Harding on entering the White House. But the 55 gentlemen who made the constitution in 1787 did not agree. The solemn clauses of Articles One to Four which seem so definite and permanent are followed by Article Five which provides a mechanism for changing them. In that sense, the constitution is forever a work in progress. The Constitutional Convention had a tricky balancing act to do: as a fundamental law above all others, the Constitution had to be entrenched - but not too deeply if Article Five was to do its work. This need for a compromise between entrenchment and adaptability caused the delegates to alter their first intention (approval of change by all the states unanimously) to a three-quarters majority. There it has remained.
The number of actual amendments passed into law is only the smallest fraction of Congress's total amendment activity: 11,539 amendments proposed, 27 passed. This 99 per cent failure rate makes changing the US constitution the ultimate obstacle race. The problem, if that is the word, is the need for "super-majorities" at each stage in the process. Some commentators have thought the constitution was fine as it is. James Russell Lowell addressing the New York Reform Club in 1888 said the constitution was "a machine that would go of itself". Speaking when he did, Lowell saw that only three amendments had succeeded in the previous 84 years and drew the obvious conclusion. On the other hand, there have been times when the constitution has been esteemed so poorly that critics urged it be...