Amendment 21:
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 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.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.
- This amendment, ratified in 1933, repealed the 1920 amendment imposing Prohibition. It invalidated the federal laws banning alcohol and returned to the states the power to set their own alcohol regulations. It is the only amendment that directly repeals another amendment.
Amendment 22:
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.
- Before the adoption of this amendment in 1951, there were no legal restrictions on how many terms a president could serve. Although it was customary to serve no more than twice, several presidents had run for third terms, but none had succeeded. It wasn't until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to unprecedented third and fourth terms that the 22nd Amendment was proposed and ratified.
- There have been multiple attempts to repeal this amendment, but none have been passed by Congress.
Amendment 23:
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.
- Adopted in 1961, this amendment granted residents of the District of Columbia the right to participate in presidential and vice-presidential elections. Prior to this, only states were allowed to vote for electors to send to the Electoral College.
- In 1978, an amendment was proposed that would have repealed the 23rd Amendment and given the District of Columbia full representation in both houses of Congress and the Electoral College. This amendment was not adopted.
Amendment 24:
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.
- The 24th Amendment, ratified in 1964, was intended to prevent southern states from forcing poor voters to choose between paying an often unaffordable tax and losing their right to vote. This amendment was necessary due to a 1937 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Breedlove v. Suttles, which had found poll taxes to be constitutional.
- In the 1966 decision Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, the Supreme Court declared that this amendment applies to all elections, not just federal ones.
Amendment 25: This amendment sets out the presidential line of succession, procedures for handling a vacancy in the office of vice president, and procedures for declaring a president unfit for office.
- The 25th amendment was adopted in 1967. Although the need to clarify the rules of succession had been obvious for decades, it wasn't until the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that this amendment finally gained the momentum to pass.
Amendment 26:
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 the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
- This amendment, adopted in 1971, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Although this change was proposed as early as 1941, the movement to finally pass it grew out of the perceived unfairness of 18 to 20-year-old men being eligible to be drafted into service in the Vietnam War, but ineligible to vote.
Amendment 27:No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
- The 27th Amendment was proposed in 1789 as part of the original Bill of Rights; however, it wasn't adopted for over 200 years. In 1982, a student at the University of Texas at Austin researched the amendment and launched a campaign to finally ratify it. In 1992, he succeeded, with Michigan being the final state to announce its ratification.