Article V — Amending the Constitution

Verbatim

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.

Plain English

The Constitution can be amended through two paths.

For proposing amendments:

• Two-thirds of both houses of Congress can propose amendments, OR
• Two-thirds of state legislatures can call for a convention to propose amendments

For ratifying amendments:

• Three-fourths of state legislatures can ratify, OR
• Three-fourths of state conventions can ratify

Congress chooses which method of ratification applies for each proposed amendment.

Two limits on the amendment power were originally written into the article:

• No amendment made before 1808 could affect the slave trade clauses or the direct-tax apportionment clause in Article I, Section 9. Note: This restriction expired in 1808 and is no longer in effect.
• No state, without its consent, can be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate.

About

Article V is the Constitution's amendment procedure — the process by which the document changes. The deliberate difficulty of this process is one of the Constitution's defining features. Amendments require both a supermajority to propose and a supermajority to ratify, on top of the practical political coordination needed to align Congress and three-fourths of the states.

Of the four possible combinations of proposal and ratification methods, only one — congressional proposal followed by state legislature ratification — has been used for almost every amendment. The exception is the Twenty-First Amendment (repealing Prohibition), which used state conventions for ratification. The other path, the convention method for proposing amendments, has never been used in U.S. history, though several state-led campaigns have attempted to call one.

Over 11,000 amendments have been proposed in Congress since 1789. Only 27 have been ratified. The amendment process is deliberately difficult, but it has produced major constitutional change — the Bill of Rights, the Reconstruction Amendments, the income tax, women's suffrage, the eighteen-year-old vote — at moments of national consensus.

The two original limits on amendments are now mostly historical. The 1808 limit on slave-trade amendments expired on schedule. The equal-Senate-representation limit remains in force; it is the only constitutional provision that requires unanimous state consent to change. In effect, no constitutional change can ever take a state's two senators away without that state's agreement.

Several amendments have been proposed but not ratified, including the Equal Rights Amendment (originally proposed in 1923, passed by Congress in 1972, with a contested ratification status as of 2026), the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment (proposed in 1978, expired in 1985), and many others.