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Primary Source · Constitution & Liberty

The Constitution of the United States

The complete text as transcribed by the National Archives, with ratification dates, landmark cases, and the principles that structure American self-government. We keep the original spelling and capitalization.

Constitutional Convention opens
May 25, 1787
Delegates who attended
55
Signed
September 17, 1787
Ratification complete
June 21, 1788

The Preamble

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Primary SourceCatalog entry

At a Glance

The Constitution in Numbers and Dates

May 25, 1787
Constitutional Convention opens
Delegates met at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia and unanimously chose George Washington to preside.
55
Delegates who attended
Rhode Island was the only state that sent no delegates.
September 17, 1787
Signed
39 signatures: 38 delegates signed, and George Read of Delaware signed for the absent John Dickinson.
June 21, 1788
Ratification complete
New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify, meeting the threshold set by Article VII.
March 4, 1789
New government begins
The date the Confederation Congress set for proceedings under the Constitution to commence; the First Congress convened in New York City but did not reach a quorum until April.
7
Articles
In the Convention’s final days, the Committee of Style condensed 23 draft articles into seven.
December 15, 1791
Bill of Rights ratified
Congress proposed twelve amendments on September 25, 1789; ten were ratified as the Bill of Rights.
27
Amendments
All were proposed by Congress; the Article V method of proposing amendments by a convention of the states has never been used.
1
Amendments ratified by state conventions
The Twenty-first Amendment (1933), which repealed Prohibition. Every other amendment was ratified by state legislatures.
May 7, 1992
Most recent amendment
The Twenty-seventh Amendment, on congressional pay, was ratified more than two centuries after Congress proposed it in 1789.

Seven Articles

The Frame of Government

The legislative, executive and judicial powers, the relations among the states, the amendment process, the supremacy of the Constitution, and ratification. Key clauses are quoted verbatim.

Article I

The Legislative Branch

Article I vests all federal legislative power in a Congress of two chambers — a House of Representatives apportioned by population and a Senate in which each state has equal suffrage — and sets out how bills become law. Section 8 enumerates Congress’s powers, from taxing and regulating commerce to declaring war and organizing the militia, while Sections 9 and 10 limit both federal and state power. Two provisions reflected compromises with slavery: the three-fifths rule for apportionment, later replaced by Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and a bar on prohibiting the slave trade before 1808.

Legislative Vesting ClauseArticle I, Section 1
“All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
Commerce ClauseArticle I, Section 8, Clause 3
“To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”
Declare War ClauseArticle I, Section 8, Clause 11
“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”
Necessary and Proper ClauseArticle I, Section 8, Clause 18
“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”
Suspension Clause (Habeas Corpus)Article I, Section 9, Clause 2
“The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”
Article II

The Executive Branch

Article II vests the executive power in a President, chosen with a Vice President through presidential electors for a four-year term, and prescribes the President’s qualifications and oath. The President commands the armed forces, may grant pardons, makes treaties and appoints officers with the Senate’s advice and consent, and must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The Twelfth, Twentieth, Twenty-second and Twenty-fifth Amendments later changed how Presidents are elected, when terms begin, how many terms a President may serve and how vacancies and disabilities are handled.

Executive Vesting ClauseArticle II, Section 1, Clause 1
“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
Presidential Oath of OfficeArticle II, Section 1, Clause 8
“Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.””
Commander in Chief and Pardon ClausesArticle II, Section 2, Clause 1
“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
Treaty and Appointments ClauseArticle II, Section 2, Clause 2
“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
State of the Union and Take Care ClausesArticle II, Section 3
“He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”
Article III

The Judicial Branch

Article III vests the judicial power in one Supreme Court and in lower courts that Congress chooses to establish, with judges who hold office during “good Behaviour” and whose pay cannot be reduced. It extends federal jurisdiction to specified cases and controversies, guarantees jury trials for federal crimes, and defines treason narrowly, requiring two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court. The Eleventh Amendment later narrowed federal jurisdiction over suits against states.

Judicial Vesting and Good Behaviour ClausesArticle III, Section 1
“The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”
Cases and Controversies ClauseArticle III, Section 2, Clause 1
“The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;—to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;—to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or more States;— between a State and Citizens of another State,—between Citizens of different States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.”
Original and Appellate Jurisdiction (Exceptions Clause)Article III, Section 2, Clause 2
“In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
Criminal Jury Trial ClauseArticle III, Section 2, Clause 3
“The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.”
Treason ClauseArticle III, Section 3, Clause 1
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
Article IV

The States and the Union

Article IV governs relations among the states and with the Union: each state must give full faith and credit to the others’ public acts, records and judicial proceedings, and citizens of each state share the privileges and immunities of citizens in every state. It provides for returning fugitives from justice, admitting new states and governing federal territory, and it guarantees every state a republican form of government. Its Fugitive Slave Clause, which required the return of people escaping enslavement, was superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment.

Full Faith and Credit ClauseArticle IV, Section 1
“Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”
Privileges and Immunities ClauseArticle IV, Section 2, Clause 1
“The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.”
Fugitive Slave Clause (superseded)Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3
“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”
Admissions ClauseArticle IV, Section 3, Clause 1
“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
Guarantee ClauseArticle IV, Section 4
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
Article V

The Amendment Process

Article V sets out how the Constitution may be amended. Amendments may be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a convention called on the application of two-thirds of the state legislatures, and they become part of the Constitution when ratified by three-fourths of the states, through their legislatures or through conventions. Every amendment so far has been proposed by Congress — the convention method has never been used — and only the Twenty-first Amendment was sent to state ratifying conventions.

Proposal and Ratification of AmendmentsArticle V
“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;”
Entrenchment Provisos (Equal Suffrage in the Senate)Article V
“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.”
Article VI

The Supreme Law of the Land

Article VI pledged the new government to honor debts incurred under the Articles of Confederation and makes the Constitution, federal laws made under it and treaties “the supreme Law of the Land,” binding on the judges of every state. It requires federal and state officers to swear or affirm their support for the Constitution while forbidding any religious test as a qualification for federal office.

Debts and Engagements ClauseArticle VI, Clause 1
“All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.”
Supremacy ClauseArticle VI, Clause 2
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Oaths Clause and No Religious Test ClauseArticle VI, Clause 3
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Article VII

Ratification

Article VII provided that ratification by conventions in nine states would establish the Constitution among the states that ratified it. The Convention approved the document on September 17, 1787; New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify on June 21, 1788, and the new government began on March 4, 1789. The attestation that follows the article records the Convention’s approval above the delegates’ signatures.

Ratification ClauseArticle VII
“The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.”
Attestation ClauseArticle VII, closing attestation
“done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,”

Amendments I–X · Ratified December 15, 1791

The Bill of Rights

Congress proposed these amendments in 1789 after a promise to the Constitution’s skeptics that rights would be written down. They were ratified in 1791.

Catalog entry

Amendment I · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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Bars Congress from establishing religion or prohibiting its free exercise, and protects freedom of speech, of the press, of peaceable assembly and of petition. The Supreme Court has applied these guarantees to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Landmark cases 4

  • 1943

    West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

    319 U.S. 624 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Robert H. Jackson

    Holding. Public schools may not compel students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

    Primary Source

  • 1964

    New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

    376 U.S. 254 · Decided 9–0 · Justice William J. Brennan Jr.

    Holding. A public official may not recover damages for a defamatory falsehood about official conduct without proving “actual malice” — that the statement was made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

    Primary Source

  • 1969

    Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

    393 U.S. 503 · Decided 7–2 · Justice Abe Fortas

    Holding. Students who wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War were protected; schools may restrict student expression only when it would materially and substantially disrupt school activities.

    Primary Source

  • 2022

    Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

    597 U.S. 507 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Neil Gorsuch

    Holding. The Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses protected a public-school football coach’s brief, personal prayer at midfield after games; the school district could not discipline him for it.

    Primary Source

Amendment II · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Right to Keep and Bear Arms

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Primary Source

Protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court held in 2008 that it secures an individual right unconnected with militia service and in 2010 that it binds the states; the Second Amendment Center collects the full record.

Landmark cases 4

  • 2008

    District of Columbia v. Heller

    554 U.S. 570 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Antonin Scalia

    Holding. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with militia service and to use it for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

    Primary Source

  • 2010

    McDonald v. City of Chicago

    561 U.S. 742 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

    Holding. The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller fully applicable to the states.

    Primary Source

  • 2022

    New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen

    597 U.S. 1 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Clarence Thomas

    Holding. New York’s requirement that applicants show “proper cause” to obtain a license to carry a handgun in public violated the Constitution; the right extends to carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense.

    Primary Source

  • 2024

    United States v. Rahimi

    602 U.S. 680 · Decided 8–1 · Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

    Holding. When a court has found that an individual poses a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment.

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Amendment III · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Quartering of Soldiers

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Primary Source

Forbids quartering soldiers in private homes in peacetime without the owner’s consent, and in wartime except as the law prescribes — a response to colonial grievances against the British army. The Supreme Court has never decided a case directly implicating it, though it has cited the amendment as one of the Constitution’s protections of privacy in the home.

Amendment IV · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Searches and Seizures

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Primary Source

Protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires that warrants rest on probable cause, supported by oath, and particularly describe what is to be searched or seized. Courts have carried its principles from houses and papers to telephone calls and digital records.

Landmark cases 4

  • 1961

    Mapp v. Ohio

    367 U.S. 643 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Tom C. Clark

    Holding. Evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search is inadmissible in state criminal trials.

    Primary Source

  • 1967

    Katz v. United States

    389 U.S. 347 · Decided 7–1 · Justice Potter Stewart

    Holding. Recording a man’s calls from a public telephone booth without a warrant was an unconstitutional search; the Fourth Amendment protects people, not simply places.

    Primary Source

  • 1968

    Terry v. Ohio

    392 U.S. 1 · Decided 8–1 · Chief Justice Earl Warren

    Holding. Police may briefly stop a person on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and frisk for weapons when they reasonably believe the person is armed and dangerous.

    Primary Source

  • 2018

    Carpenter v. United States

    585 U.S. 296 · Decided 5–4 · Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

    Holding. The government generally needs a warrant to obtain historical cell-site location records that reveal a person’s movements over time.

    Primary Source

Amendment V · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Grand Jury, Double Jeopardy, Self-Incrimination, Due Process and Takings

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Primary Source

Requires grand-jury indictment for serious federal crimes and protects against double jeopardy, compelled self-incrimination, the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and the taking of private property for public use without just compensation.

Landmark cases 3

  • 1833

    Barron v. Baltimore

    32 U.S. 243 · Chief Justice John Marshall

    Holding. Writing for a unanimous Court, Marshall held that the Takings Clause — and the Bill of Rights generally — restrained only the federal government, not the states.

    Primary Source

  • 1966

    Miranda v. Arizona

    384 U.S. 436 · Decided 5–4 · Chief Justice Earl Warren

    Holding. Statements obtained through custodial interrogation are inadmissible unless the suspect was first warned of the right to remain silent and to have an attorney, and knowingly waived those rights.

    Primary Source

  • 2005

    Kelo v. City of New London

    545 U.S. 469 · Decided 5–4 · Justice John Paul Stevens

    Holding. A city’s taking of private homes to carry out an economic-development plan satisfied the Fifth Amendment’s “public use” requirement.

    Primary Source

Amendment VI · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Rights of the Accused in Criminal Prosecutions

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Primary Source

Guarantees the accused a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, notice of the charges, the right to confront adverse witnesses, compulsory process to obtain favorable witnesses, and the assistance of counsel.

Landmark cases 3

  • 1963

    Gideon v. Wainwright

    372 U.S. 335 · Decided 9–0 · Justice Hugo L. Black

    Holding. States must appoint counsel for criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer.

    Primary Source

  • 1968

    Duncan v. Louisiana

    391 U.S. 145 · Decided 7–2 · Justice Byron R. White

    Holding. The right to trial by jury in serious criminal cases is fundamental and applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Primary Source

  • 2020

    Ramos v. Louisiana

    590 U.S. 83 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Neil Gorsuch

    Holding. A state conviction for a serious offense requires a unanimous jury verdict.

    Primary Source

Amendment VII · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Civil Jury Trial

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Primary Source

Preserves the right to a jury in federal civil suits at common law where more than twenty dollars is in controversy, and limits how federal courts may re-examine facts a jury has found. It is one of the few Bill of Rights guarantees the Supreme Court has not applied to the states.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1974

    Curtis v. Loether

    415 U.S. 189 · Decided 9–0 · Justice Thurgood Marshall

    Holding. A suit for damages under the fair-housing provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 is triable to a jury, because it is analogous to an action at common law.

    Primary Source

  • 2024

    Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy

    603 U.S. 109 · Decided 6–3 · Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

    Holding. When the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud, the defendant is entitled to a jury trial in court rather than an in-house agency proceeding.

    Primary Source

Amendment VIII · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Bail, Fines and Punishments

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Primary Source

Prohibits excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments. Its application to the death penalty has been among the most contested questions in American constitutional law.

Landmark cases 4

  • 1972

    Furman v. Georgia

    408 U.S. 238 · Decided 5–4 · Per curiam

    Holding. The death sentences before the Court, imposed under statutes giving juries unguided discretion, constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

    Primary Source

  • 1976

    Gregg v. Georgia

    428 U.S. 153 · Decided 7–2 · Justice Potter Stewart (plurality opinion)

    Holding. The death penalty is not unconstitutional in all circumstances; Georgia’s revised statute, with guided discretion and separate guilt and sentencing phases, was upheld.

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  • 2005

    Roper v. Simmons

    543 U.S. 551 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

    Holding. The Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for offenders who were under eighteen when they committed their crimes.

    Primary Source

  • 2019

    Timbs v. Indiana

    586 U.S. 146 · Decided 9–0 · Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    Holding. The Excessive Fines Clause applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

    Primary Source

Amendment IX · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Rights Retained by the People

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Primary Source

Declares that listing certain rights in the Constitution does not deny or disparage others retained by the people, answering the concern raised during ratification that a bill of rights might imply that unlisted rights were surrendered.

Landmark cases 1

  • 1965

    Griswold v. Connecticut

    381 U.S. 479 · Decided 7–2 · Justice William O. Douglas

    Holding. Struck down a Connecticut ban on contraceptives as applied to married couples, finding a right of marital privacy in the “penumbras” of several Bill of Rights guarantees.

    Primary Source

Amendment X · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified December 15, 1791

Powers Reserved to the States and the People

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Primary Source

Confirms that powers not delegated to the national government, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people — the textual anchor of American federalism. How much independent force it has has been debated throughout the Court’s history.

Landmark cases 3

  • 1941

    United States v. Darby

    312 U.S. 100 · Justice Harlan F. Stone

    Holding. A unanimous Court upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act’s wage-and-hour rules under the Commerce Clause.

    Primary Source

  • 1992

    New York v. United States

    505 U.S. 144 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

    Holding. Congress may not commandeer state legislatures by compelling them to enact or administer a federal regulatory program; a provision forcing states to take title to radioactive waste was struck down.

    Primary Source

  • 1997

    Printz v. United States

    521 U.S. 898 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Antonin Scalia

    Holding. The federal government may not command state or local officers to administer a federal program; the Brady Act’s interim requirement that local chief law-enforcement officers conduct background checks was unconstitutional.

    Primary Source

Amendments XI–XXVII

Amending the Constitution

Seventeen amendments since 1791, most of them extending the vote, citizenship and equal protection.

The Early Republic

Two amendments in the first generation fixed problems in the original design: suits against states and the method of electing the president and vice president.

Amendment XI · Proposed March 4, 1794 · Ratified February 7, 1795

Suits Against States

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

Primary Source

Bars federal courts from hearing suits against a state brought by citizens of another state or of a foreign country. Congress proposed it after the Supreme Court allowed such a suit in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793).

Landmark cases 4

  • 1793

    Chisholm v. Georgia

    2 U.S. 419 · Decided 4–1

    Holding. In opinions delivered separately by each Justice, the Court held that a citizen of another state could sue the State of Georgia in federal court.

    Primary Source

  • 1890

    Hans v. Louisiana

    134 U.S. 1 · Justice Joseph P. Bradley

    Holding. A state may not be sued in federal court by its own citizens without its consent.

    Primary Source

  • 1908

    Ex parte Young

    209 U.S. 123 · Justice Rufus W. Peckham

    Holding. Federal courts may enjoin state officials from enforcing unconstitutional laws; such suits are not barred as suits against the state itself.

    Primary Source

  • 1996

    Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida

    517 U.S. 44 · Decided 5–4 · Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

    Holding. Congress may not use its Article I powers, here the Indian Commerce Clause, to abrogate the states’ sovereign immunity from suit.

    Primary Source

Amendment XII · Proposed December 9, 1803 · Ratified June 15, 1804

Election of the President and Vice President

The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; — the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; — The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. — The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Primary Source

Requires electors to cast separate ballots for President and Vice President, after the election of 1800 produced an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr that the House had to resolve. The sentence on the House’s failure to choose a President by the fourth of March was superseded by Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment.

Landmark cases 1

  • 2020

    Chiafalo v. Washington

    591 U.S. 578 · Decided 9–0 · Justice Elena Kagan

    Holding. A state may require its presidential electors to vote for the candidate who won the state’s popular vote and may penalize those who do not.

    Primary Source

The Reconstruction Amendments

After the Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments abolished slavery, defined national citizenship with due process and equal protection, and barred racial discrimination in voting. All three were proposed by Republican-led Congresses.

Amendment XIII · Proposed January 31, 1865 · Ratified December 6, 1865

Abolition of Slavery

Section 1.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.

Section 2.Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source

Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, throughout the United States, and empowered Congress to enforce the ban. Passed by Congress in the final months of the Civil War with strong Republican support, it completed the work begun by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1883

    The Civil Rights Cases

    109 U.S. 3 · Decided 8–1 · Justice Joseph P. Bradley

    Holding. Struck down the public-accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, holding that neither the Thirteenth nor the Fourteenth Amendment authorized Congress to prohibit discrimination by private businesses.

    Primary Source

  • 1968

    Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.

    392 U.S. 409 · Decided 7–2 · Justice Potter Stewart

    Holding. Under its Thirteenth Amendment enforcement power, Congress could and did bar private as well as public racial discrimination in the sale and rental of property.

    Primary Source

Amendment XIV · Proposed June 13, 1866 · Ratified July 9, 1868

Citizenship, Due Process and Equal Protection

Section 1.All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3.No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Primary Source

Defines national and state citizenship and forbids states to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens, to deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, or to deny any person the equal protection of the laws. Framed by the Republican Congress during Reconstruction, it reversed Dred Scott’s denial of Black citizenship and became the vehicle for applying most of the Bill of Rights to the states.

Landmark cases 4

  • 1857

    Dred Scott v. Sandford

    60 U.S. 393 · Decided 7–2 · Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

    Holding. Held that Black Americans, free or enslaved, could not be citizens of the United States and that Congress could not bar slavery from the federal territories.

    Primary Source

  • 1873

    The Slaughter-House Cases

    83 U.S. 36 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Samuel F. Miller

    Holding. Read the Privileges or Immunities Clause narrowly, as protecting only a limited set of rights of national citizenship.

    Primary Source

  • 1954

    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

    347 U.S. 483 · Decided 9–0 · Chief Justice Earl Warren

    Holding. State-mandated racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause; “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

    Primary Source

  • 2022

    Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

    597 U.S. 215 · Decided 6–3 · Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

    Holding. The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) were overruled, returning the regulation of abortion to the people and their elected representatives.

    Primary Source

Amendment XV · Proposed February 26, 1869 · Ratified February 3, 1870

Voting Rights Regardless of Race

Section 1.The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—

Section 2.The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source

Forbids the United States and the states to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. For generations its promise was evaded through grandfather clauses, white primaries, poll taxes and literacy tests, until federal enforcement, above all the Voting Rights Act of 1965, took hold.

Landmark cases 4

  • 1915

    Guinn v. United States

    238 U.S. 347 · Chief Justice Edward D. White

    Holding. Struck down Oklahoma’s “grandfather clause,” which exempted from a literacy test those entitled to vote on January 1, 1866, and their lineal descendants.

    Primary Source

  • 1944

    Smith v. Allwright

    321 U.S. 649 · Decided 8–1 · Justice Stanley F. Reed

    Holding. The Texas Democratic Party’s whites-only primary, conducted under state law, was state action that violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

    Primary Source

  • 1966

    South Carolina v. Katzenbach

    383 U.S. 301 · Decided 8–1 · Chief Justice Earl Warren

    Holding. Upheld the core provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a valid exercise of Congress’s power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment.

    Primary Source

  • 2013

    Shelby County v. Holder

    570 U.S. 529 · Decided 5–4 · Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

    Holding. Struck down the Voting Rights Act’s coverage formula, which determined which jurisdictions had to obtain federal preclearance of changes to their voting rules.

    Primary Source

The Progressive Era

The federal income tax, the direct election of senators, Prohibition, and women’s suffrage.

Amendment XVI · Proposed July 2, 1909 · Ratified February 3, 1913

Federal Income Tax

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Primary Source

Authorizes Congress to tax incomes from any source without apportioning the tax among the states by population. It overcame the Supreme Court’s 1895 decision in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., which had struck down the income tax of 1894.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1895

    Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.

    157 U.S. 429; 158 U.S. 601 · Decided 5–4 (on rehearing) · Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller

    Holding. A tax on income from property was a direct tax that had to be apportioned among the states by population, and the income tax of 1894 was therefore invalid.

    Primary Source

  • 1916

    Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co.

    240 U.S. 1 · Chief Justice Edward D. White

    Holding. Upheld the federal income tax enacted in 1913 under the new amendment.

    Primary Source

Amendment XVII · Proposed May 13, 1912 · Ratified April 8, 1913

Popular Election of Senators

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

Primary Source

Provides for the direct election of senators by the people of each state, replacing election by state legislatures, and lets legislatures authorize governors to make temporary appointments to fill vacancies. By the year before ratification, many states had already arranged for voters to choose senatorial candidates in effect.

Amendment XVIII · Proposed December 18, 1917 · Ratified January 16, 1919

Prohibition of Intoxicating Liquors

Section 1.After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2.The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3.This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Primary Source

Prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes; national Prohibition took effect on January 17, 1920. It is the only amendment ever repealed, by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

Amendment XIX · Proposed June 4, 1919 · Ratified August 18, 1920

Women’s Suffrage

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

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

Primary Source

Forbids the United States or any state to deny or abridge the right to vote on account of sex. The same language was first introduced in Congress in 1878, and the Senate rejected it in 1887, decades before its adoption.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1875

    Minor v. Happersett

    88 U.S. 162 · Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite

    Holding. The Fourteenth Amendment did not give women the right to vote, because citizenship alone did not confer suffrage.

    Primary Source

  • 1922

    Leser v. Garnett

    258 U.S. 130 · Justice Louis D. Brandeis

    Holding. Rejected challenges to the validity of the Nineteenth Amendment’s adoption.

    Primary Source

The Twentieth Century and After

Terms and succession, repeal of Prohibition, presidential term limits, votes for the District of Columbia and for eighteen-year-olds, the abolition of poll taxes in federal elections, and congressional pay.

Amendment XX · Proposed March 2, 1932 · Ratified January 23, 1933

Presidential and Congressional Terms

Section 1.The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.

Section 2.The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.

Section 3.If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

Section 4.The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them.

Section 5.Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article.

Section 6.This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission.

Primary Source

Moved the start of presidential terms from March 4 to January 20 and of congressional terms to January 3, shortening the “lame duck” period after elections, and set rules for when a President-elect dies or fails to qualify. Its Section 3 superseded part of the Twelfth Amendment.

Amendment XXI · Proposed February 20, 1933 · Ratified December 5, 1933

Repeal of Prohibition

Section 1.The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2.The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3.This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Primary Source

Repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, ending almost fourteen years of national Prohibition, while forbidding the transportation or importation of liquor into any state in violation of its laws. It is the only amendment Congress sent to state ratifying conventions rather than to state legislatures.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1987

    South Dakota v. Dole

    483 U.S. 203 · Decided 7–2 · Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

    Holding. Congress may withhold a portion of federal highway funds from states that do not adopt a minimum drinking age of 21; the Twenty-first Amendment does not bar such spending conditions.

    Primary Source

  • 2005

    Granholm v. Heald

    544 U.S. 460 · Decided 5–4 · Justice Anthony M. Kennedy

    Holding. State laws allowing in-state but not out-of-state wineries to ship directly to consumers discriminated against interstate commerce, and the Twenty-first Amendment did not save them.

    Primary Source

Amendment XXII · Proposed March 21, 1947 · Ratified February 27, 1951

Presidential Term Limits

Section 1.No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2.This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

Primary Source

Limits a person to being elected President twice, and to once if the person served more than two years of a term to which someone else was elected. Congress proposed it in 1947, after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s elections to third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944 broke the two-term tradition begun by George Washington.

Amendment XXIII · Proposed June 16, 1960 · Ratified March 29, 1961

Presidential Electors for the District of Columbia

Section 1.The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2.The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source

Gives the District of Columbia presidential electors equal to the number it would have if it were a state, but no more than the least populous state has. It does not make the District a state or give it voting representation in Congress.

Amendment XXIV · Proposed August 27, 1962 · Ratified January 23, 1964

Abolition of Poll Taxes in Federal Elections

Section 1.The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2.The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source

Bars denying the vote in federal elections for failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax. Poll taxes had been adopted by eleven Southern states after Reconstruction; five still used them when the amendment was ratified.

Landmark cases 2

  • 1965

    Harman v. Forssenius

    380 U.S. 528 · Decided 9–0 · Chief Justice Earl Warren

    Holding. Virginia could not require federal voters to choose between paying a poll tax and filing a certificate of residence months before the election; the substitute requirement was itself an abridgment the amendment forbids.

    Primary Source

  • 1966

    Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections

    383 U.S. 663 · Decided 6–3 · Justice William O. Douglas

    Holding. Conditioning the right to vote in state elections on payment of a poll tax violates the Equal Protection Clause.

    Primary Source

Amendment XXV · Proposed July 6, 1965 · Ratified February 10, 1967

Presidential Vacancy, Disability and Succession

Section 1.In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2.Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3.Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4.Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

Primary Source

Confirms that the Vice President becomes President when a President is removed, dies or resigns; lets the President fill a vice-presidential vacancy with the confirmation of both houses; and sets procedures for transferring power when a President is unable to serve. Section 2 was first used in 1973, when President Nixon nominated Gerald R. Ford to succeed Vice President Spiro Agnew; Section 4 has never been invoked.

Amendment XXVI · Proposed March 23, 1971 · Ratified July 1, 1971

Voting Age of Eighteen

Section 1.The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

Section 2.The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source

Lowered the voting age to eighteen in federal, state and local elections. Congress proposed it after Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) held that Congress could set the voting age by statute only for federal elections, and the states ratified it little more than three months later.

Landmark cases 1

  • 1970

    Oregon v. Mitchell

    400 U.S. 112 · Justice Hugo L. Black (announcing the judgment)

    Holding. A divided Court held that Congress could lower the voting age to eighteen by statute for federal elections but not for state and local elections.

    Primary Source

Amendment XXVII · Proposed September 25, 1789 · Ratified May 7, 1992

Congressional Pay Changes

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Primary Source

Delays any change in congressional pay until after the next election of Representatives. Proposed in 1789 with the amendments that became the Bill of Rights, it was ratified more than two centuries later, after a state-by-state campaign that University of Texas student Gregory Watson began in 1982.

Constitutional Principles

How the Constitution Protects Liberty

Federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review and individual rights: the structure the framers built and how courts and Congress have applied it.

Federalism

A national government of limited, enumerated powers alongside states that keep the rest.

The Constitution divides power between two levels of government. In “the compound republic of America,” Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51, power surrendered by the people “is first divided between two distinct governments.” The national government may exercise only the powers the Constitution grants it, and the Tenth Amendment confirms that the rest are reserved to the states or to the people.

Where the line falls has been contested from the start. Chief Justice John Marshall read national powers broadly in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819); the New Deal Court upheld federal regulation of nearly any economic activity with an aggregate effect on interstate commerce; and since the 1990s the Court has again enforced limits, both on the reach of the Commerce Clause and on Congress’s power to commandeer state governments.

Advocates of a strong national role point to problems that cross state lines and to the history of states denying civil rights to their own citizens. Defenders of robust federalism answer that dispersed power protects liberty, allows states to experiment and keeps government close to the people it serves. Both arguments run through American constitutional history.

  • January 1788

    Federalist No. 39 and No. 45

    James Madison described the proposed Constitution as “neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both” (No. 39), and argued that the powers delegated to the federal government “are few and defined,” while those remaining in the states “are numerous and indefinite” (No. 45).

    Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Primary Source

  • Ratified December 15, 1791

    The Tenth Amendment

    “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Its force as a limit on national power has been debated ever since.

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • 1819

    McCulloch v. Maryland

    For a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Marshall upheld Congress’s power to charter a national bank under the Necessary and Proper Clause, reminding readers that “it is a constitution we are expounding,” and held that Maryland could not tax the bank, because “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1942

    Wickard v. Filburn

    A unanimous Court held that Congress could regulate wheat a farmer grew for use on his own farm, because such activity, taken together with that of many others, substantially affects interstate commerce. The decision became a cornerstone of broad Commerce Clause authority.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1995

    United States v. Lopez

    By a 5–4 vote, the Court struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, holding that possessing a gun near a school is not an economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. It was the first time in decades the Court had found a federal law beyond the commerce power.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1992; 1997

    New York v. United States and Printz v. United States

    The Court held that Congress may not commandeer state legislatures to enact or administer federal programs (New York) or conscript state and local officers to carry them out (Printz, which struck down the Brady Act’s interim requirement that local sheriffs conduct background checks).

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

Separation of Powers

Legislative, executive and judicial power vested in three distinct branches.

The Constitution’s first three articles vest the legislative power in Congress, the executive power in a President and the judicial power in the federal courts. Drawing on Montesquieu and on colonial experience, the framers concluded, as Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47, that the accumulation of all powers in the same hands “may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

The separation was never meant to be airtight. The branches share some functions: the President signs or vetoes bills, and the Senate confirms appointments and approves treaties. The hardest cases arise when one branch claims a power the Constitution does not clearly assign, as when President Truman seized the nation’s steel mills in 1952 or Congress reserved to itself a “legislative veto” over executive decisions.

Many modern disputes concern the administrative state: how much authority Congress may delegate to agencies, how far agencies may be insulated from presidential control, and how much deference courts owe to agencies’ interpretations of the laws they administer.

  • 1788

    Federalist No. 47

    Answering critics who said the Constitution blended the branches, Madison read Montesquieu to condemn not every overlap but the case where “the WHOLE power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the WHOLE power of another department.”

    Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Primary Source

  • 1952

    Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer

    By a 6–3 vote, the Court held that President Truman lacked authority to seize the steel mills during the Korean War without authorization from Congress. Justice Robert Jackson’s concurrence — presidential power is greatest when backed by Congress, uncertain in a “zone of twilight” when Congress is silent, and “at its lowest ebb” when the President defies Congress — remains the standard framework.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1983

    Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha

    The Court held 7–2 that the “legislative veto,” which let one house of Congress override an executive decision without passing a law, violated the Constitution’s requirements of passage by both houses and presentment to the President. Justice White’s dissent noted that the ruling doomed nearly 200 other statutory provisions.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1988

    Morrison v. Olson

    The Court upheld the independent-counsel law 7–1. Justice Antonin Scalia’s solitary dissent argued that the Constitution vests all of the executive power in the President and warned against prosecutors insulated from political accountability; Congress let the independent-counsel statute lapse in 1999.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 2024

    Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

    The Court overruled Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), holding that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their own judgment about what a statute means rather than defer to an agency’s reasonable reading of an ambiguous law.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

Checks and Balances

Each branch armed to resist encroachment by the others.

Separation alone, the framers believed, would not hold. In Federalist No. 51 Madison argued that each branch needed “the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others,” because “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

The Constitution therefore interlocks the branches. The President may veto legislation, and two-thirds of each house may override the veto; the Senate confirms nominees and approves treaties; Congress controls appropriations and may impeach and remove officers; and the courts decide cases arising under the Constitution. Federalism and the Bill of Rights add further checks from outside the national government.

These tools are designed to produce friction, and they do: vetoes, confirmation contests and impeachments recur throughout American history. Defenders see that friction as the design at work; critics argue that it can produce gridlock and push decisions toward agencies and courts.

  • February 1788

    Federalist No. 51

    Madison grounded the system in a realistic view of human nature: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” A government of men over men must first be enabled to control the governed and then obliged to control itself.

    Source: Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Primary Source

  • Article I, Section 7

    The veto and its override

    Every bill passed by both houses must be presented to the President, who may sign it or return it with objections; two-thirds of each house may then pass it over the veto. A bill not returned within ten days (Sundays excepted) becomes law, unless Congress by adjourning prevents its return — the so-called pocket veto.

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • Article II, Section 2

    Advice and consent

    The President makes treaties only if two-thirds of the Senators present concur, and appoints ambassadors, Supreme Court Justices and other officers “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.”

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • 1868–2021

    Impeachment

    The House has the sole power to impeach and the Senate the sole power to try impeachments, with conviction requiring two-thirds of the Senators present. The House has impeached three Presidents — Andrew Johnson in 1868, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2019 and again in 2021 — and the Senate acquitted each time.

    U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

    Historical Record

  • November 7, 1973

    War Powers Resolution

    Enacted over President Nixon’s veto, it requires the President to report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing forces into hostilities and to end their use within sixty days, extendable by thirty, unless Congress authorizes it. Its constitutionality and its application to modern military operations remain disputed between the branches.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1998

    Clinton v. City of New York

    By a 6–3 vote, the Court struck down the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which let the President cancel individual spending and tax provisions after signing a bill. The Presentment Clause, the Court held, requires the President to approve or reject a bill as a whole.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

Judicial Review

The power of courts to decline to enforce laws that conflict with the Constitution.

The Constitution does not expressly grant courts the power to set aside laws, but many founders expected it. In Federalist No. 78 Alexander Hamilton argued that the judiciary, having “neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment,” would be the least dangerous branch, and that when a statute conflicts with the Constitution, judges must be governed by the Constitution.

Chief Justice John Marshall established the practice in Marbury v. Madison (1803), and the Court soon extended its review to state laws and state-court judgments. The power has been used both to vindicate rights, as in Brown v. Board of Education, and to deny them, as in Dred Scott v. Sandford.

Whether the Court’s interpretations bind the other branches in every case, a position often called judicial supremacy, has been debated since the founding. Abraham Lincoln, responding to Dred Scott, accepted that decisions bind the parties but warned against letting the Court irrevocably settle national policy. Today’s debates between originalists and their critics are, at bottom, debates about how judges should exercise this power.

  • 1788

    Federalist No. 78

    Hamilton argued that the judiciary “will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution,” and that where the will of the legislature conflicts with the will of the people declared in the Constitution, judges “ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former.”

    Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Primary Source

  • 1803

    Marbury v. Madison

    Chief Justice Marshall held that part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 unconstitutionally enlarged the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, declaring: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1816

    Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee

    Justice Joseph Story held that the Supreme Court may review state-court decisions on questions of federal law, securing a uniform national interpretation of the Constitution, federal statutes and treaties.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1857

    Dred Scott v. Sandford

    Generally counted as only the second time the Court struck down an act of Congress, the decision held the Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery in federal territories unconstitutional and denied that Black Americans could be citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment reversed its holding on citizenship.

    Source: Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • March 4, 1861

    Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address

    Lincoln accepted that Supreme Court decisions bind the parties to a suit and deserve high respect, but warned that if national policy on vital questions were “irrevocably fixed” by the Court in ordinary litigation, “the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.”

    Source: Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Opposing View / Debate

  • 1958

    Cooper v. Aaron

    In an opinion signed by all nine Justices, the Court rejected Arkansas officials’ claim that they were not bound by Brown v. Board of Education, stating that Marbury “declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution.”

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

Individual Liberty

Rights the Constitution secures against government, and how they came to bind the states.

The Declaration of Independence grounded American government in the conviction that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” and that governments are instituted to secure them. The Constitution of 1787 protected some rights directly, including habeas corpus, jury trial in federal criminal cases and the ban on religious tests, and the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, added the familiar guarantees of religion, speech, arms, property and fair process.

At first those guarantees limited only the national government, as the Supreme Court confirmed in Barron v. Baltimore (1833). The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, forbade states to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens or to deny due process and equal protection, and over the twentieth century the Court applied most of the Bill of Rights to the states through its Due Process Clause.

Americans continue to debate which liberties the Constitution protects beyond those it lists. The Ninth Amendment provides that the enumeration of some rights does not deny others; how judges should identify such rights, and whether that task belongs instead to legislatures and voters, remains one of the central questions of constitutional law.

  • July 4, 1776

    Declaration of Independence

    Declared that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed” and exist to secure the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • June 12, 1776

    Virginia Declaration of Rights

    Written by George Mason and adopted weeks before independence, it was drawn upon by Thomas Jefferson for the opening of the Declaration of Independence, widely copied by the other colonies and, in the National Archives’ words, “became the basis of the Bill of Rights.”

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • 1788

    Federalist No. 84

    Hamilton argued that a bill of rights was “not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous,” because listing exceptions to powers never granted might imply those powers existed. Anti-Federalists and several ratifying conventions insisted on one anyway.

    Avalon Project, Yale Law School

    Primary Source

  • Ratified December 15, 1791

    The Bill of Rights

    Drawing on proposals from the state ratifying conventions, James Madison introduced amendments in the First Congress on June 8, 1789. Congress proposed twelve on September 25, 1789, and ten were ratified as the Bill of Rights.

    Source: National Archives

    Primary Source

  • 1833

    Barron v. Baltimore

    Chief Justice Marshall held for a unanimous Court that the Bill of Rights restrained only the federal government, leaving citizens to look to their state constitutions for protection against their states.

    Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Primary Source

  • 1925–2020

    Incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment

    Beginning with Gitlow v. New York (1925), which assumed that freedom of speech binds the states, the Court applied most Bill of Rights guarantees to the states through the Due Process Clause, including the right to keep and bear arms in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), the ban on excessive fines in Timbs v. Indiana (2019) and the unanimous-jury requirement in Ramos v. Louisiana (2020).

    Source: Cornell Legal Information Institute

    Historical Record

Sources

  1. The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription · National Archives
  2. The Bill of Rights: A Transcription · National Archives
  3. The Constitution: Amendments 11–27 · National Archives
  4. Amendment I. Fundamental Freedoms · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  5. Amendment II. Right to Bear Arms · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  6. Amdt3.1 Overview of Third Amendment, Quartering Soldiers · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  7. Amendment IV. Searches and Seizures · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  8. Amendment V. Rights of Persons · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  9. Amendment VI. Rights in Criminal Prosecutions · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  10. Amendment VII. Civil Trial Rights · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  11. Amendment VIII. Cruel and Unusual Punishment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  12. Amendment IX. Unenumerated Rights · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  13. Amendment X. Rights Reserved to the States and the People · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  14. Amendment XI. Suits Against States · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  15. Amdt12.1 Overview of Twelfth Amendment, Election of President · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  16. Amendment XIII. Abolition of Slavery · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  17. Amendment XIV. Equal Protection and Other Rights · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  18. Amendment XV. Right of Citizens to Vote · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  19. Amdt16.2 Historical Background on Sixteenth Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  20. Amdt17.2 Historical Background on Popular Election of Senators · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  21. Amdt18.4 Proposal and Ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  22. Amdt19.3.4 Proposal and Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  23. Amdt20.S1.1 Presidential and Congressional Terms · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  24. Amdt21.S1.2.5 Ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  25. Amdt22.1 Overview of Twenty-Second Amendment, Presidential Term Limits · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  26. Amdt23.1 Overview of Twenty-Third Amendment, District of Columbia Electors · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  27. Amdt24.1 Overview of Twenty-Fourth Amendment, Abolition of Poll Tax · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  28. Amdt25.S2.1 Implementation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  29. Amdt26.2.7 Ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute
  30. Amdt27.2.5 Ratification of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment · Congressional Research Service (Constitution Annotated), via Cornell Legal Information Institute