Congress; 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.
COMMENTARY:
Amendments may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress or by a
national convention called by Congress at the request of two-thirds of the states. To become
part of the Constitution, amendments must be ratified (approved) by the legislatures of three-
fourths of the states or by conventions in three-fourths of the states.
The framers of the Constitution purposely made it hard to put through an amendment.
Congress has considered more than 9,000 amendments, but it has proposed only 33 and
submitted them to the states. Of these, only 27 have been ratified. Only one amendment, the
21st, was ratified by state conventions. All the others were ratified by state legislatures.
The Constitution sets no time limit during which the states must ratify a proposed
amendment. But the courts have held that amendments must be ratified within a “reasonable
time” and that Congress decides what is reasonable, as it did when it allowed the promulgation
of the 27th Amendment on May 7,1992 — more than 202 years after it was proposed. Since
the early 1900s, most proposed amendments have included a requirement that the necessary
ratification be obtained within seven years.
Article VI
NATIONAL DEBTS
(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.
COMMENTARY:
This section promises that all debts and obligations made by the United States before the
adoption of the Constitution would be honored.
SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
(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.