Convention Ratification of Federal Constitutional Amendments

Abstract

The amending process of the Constitution of the United States, contained in Article V, consists of two stages: proposal and ratification. Each stage, in turn, offers two alternative procedures which can be interchanged to provide four means of effecting constitutional alteration. An amendment may be proposed either by Congress or by a national convention assembled upon proper application of the states; and an amendment may be ratified, as Congress decides, either by state legislatures or by state conventions. The latter mode of ratification strangely has been selected only for the Twenty-first Amendment; but despite its lack of use, this convention mode has had an interesting history which is here examined chronologically to explain why it has not been used more often.