Twelfth Amendment (1804)

The framers planned that candidates would be elected without political parties. They hoped that voters would choose candidates based on individual talents. Alexander Hamilton created the first political party (the Federalist party) as a coalition in Congress to get his economic plans passed into laws. His opponents created another party. In 1796, electors picked Federalist john Adams as president and Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson as vice-president.

The twelfth amendment allowed parties to nominate a team for president and vice president.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Reconstruction Amendments, and especially the Fourteenth, transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable minorities could stake a claim to substantive freedom and seek protection against misconduct by all levels of government. The rewriting of the Constitution promoted a sense of the document’s malleability, and suggested that the rights of individual citizens were intimately connected to federal power. The Bill of Rights had linked civil liberties and the autonomy of the states. Its language -- "Congress shall make no law" -- reflected the belief that concentrated power was a threat to freedom. Now, rather than a threat to liberty, the federal government, declared Charles Sumner, the abolitionist Senator from Massachusetts, had become “the custodian of freedom.” The Reconstruction Amendments assumed that rights required political power to enforce them. They not only authorized the federal government to override state actions that deprived persons of equality, but each ended with a clause empowering Congress to "enforce" them with "appropriate legislation."

(Source: The Reconstruction Amendments from History Now)

• 13th (1865) -- ended slavery and indentured servitude in the U.S.

• 14th (1868) -- defined citizens as "all persons born or naturalized in the U.S."  Limited the power of states to deny citizens the privileges of being a citizen (voting and running for office). Limited the power of the states to deny persons "due process of law" and "equal protection of law."

• 15h (1870) -- the right of citizens to vote cannot be denied on account of race or color.

Progressive Amendments

Progressivism is an umbrella label for a wide range of economic, political, social, and moral reforms. These included efforts to outlaw the sale of alcohol; regulate child labor and sweatshops; scientifically manage natural resources; insure pure and wholesome water and milk; Americanize immigrants or restrict immigration altogether; and bust or regulate trusts. Drawing support from the urban, college-educated middle class, Progressive reformers sought to eliminate corruption in government, regulate business practices, address health hazards, improve working conditions, and give the public more direct control over government.

(Source: Progressive Era, from Digital History)

• 16th  (1913)-- grants Congress the power to tax incom

• 17th  (1913)-- provides for the direct election of US. Senators

• 18th (1919) -- prohibits making, selling, or transporting alcoholic beverages.

• 19th (1920) -- voting cannot be denied a citizen on the basis of sex.

Twenty-first Amendment (1933) repeals the 18th amendment.

Twentieth Amendment (1933)

Changes the terms of the President and Vice-President to end January 20th.

Twenty-second Amendment (1951

No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice.

Twenty-third Amendment (1961)

Permits citizens in the District of Columbia to vote for Electors for President and Vice President.

Twenty-fourth Amendment (1967)

States may not deny right of citizens by reason of their failure to pay a poll tax.

Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967)

Deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities

Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971)

Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 for citizens.

Twenty- seventh Amendment (1992)

Two of the 12 amendments proposed in 1792 (out of more than 200 introduced in Congress) were not ratified. One of them later became the 27th amendment -- if Congress votes itself a raise, the raise cannot take effect until after the next election