Amending the Constitution
561
latures of three-fourths of the States or by a special convention of threefourths of the States. Congress decides which method of ratification is to
be followed and may specify the length of time in which the amendment
must be ratified. Except for the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth, every amendment added to the Constitution has
been ratified by the State legislatures. Now that there are fifty States in
the Union, no amendment can take effect unless thirty-eight States approve it. The President, it should be emphasized, plays no role in the
amendment process. He may not propose amendments, and those that
Congress proposes are not submitted to the President for signature. This
has not prevented certain Presidents, however, from persuading a member of Congress to introduce an amendment that reflects the President’s
wishes. In 1865, the proposed Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery
was mistakenly submitted to President Lincoln and inadvertently signed
by him.
The amendment process, as briefly outlined here, seems rather simple
and straightforward. Upon closer inspection, however, we observe that
it embraces a democratic theory of government and reaffirms basic principles of the American constitutional system.
First, it may be seen that the method of amendment reflects a certain
philosophy of change. By requiring extraordinary rather than simple majorities, it prefers evolutionary to revolutionary change and establishes a
cumbersome system that is intended to make the amendment process
slow and difficult. The purpose is not to prevent change but to encourage
careful deliberation, and to discourage hasty, ill-conceived, and sweeping alterations of the fundamental law by weak, impassioned, and transient majorities. In other words, it seeks to minimize the risks and uncertainties of change. Moreover, it guards against wholesale constitutional
reform at breakneck speed that might so convulse the society as to produce turbulent disorder and revolutionary upheaval.
Second, the ame