You live under a Constitution shaped by 27 amendments, but Congress actually approved 33 by two-thirds votes. Six proposals cleared Capitol Hill only to stall before reaching the required three-fourths of the states.
These unratified measures tackled everything from congressional district sizes and foreign aristocratic titles to child labor and equal rights. Understanding their fates reveals how American constitutional law adapts through alternative paths.
Several remain legally alive on paper because Congress attached no ratification deadlines. Here is the public record behind the six constitutional proposals that nearly became the supreme law of the land.
The Article V Hurdle and the 33 Approved Proposals
Article V of the U.S. Constitution sets a deliberately demanding standard for altering the national charter. A proposal needs a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress before state legislatures can even consider it.
Alternatively, two-thirds of the states can petition Congress to call an Article V convention. The nation has never used this convention mechanism, meaning every adopted amendment originated directly in Congress.
Since 1789, members of Congress have introduced nearly 12,000 constitutional amendment resolutions. Only 33 ever cleared that two-thirds threshold in both the House and the Senate.
Once an amendment leaves Capitol Hill, three-fourths of the states must ratify it. In the modern 50-state union, that requirement means 38 state legislatures must formally approve the text.
Under federal law codified at 1 U.S.C. § 106b, the Archivist of the United States oversees this procedure. The Archivist certifies an amendment only after receiving formal statutory notifications from the required number of states.
While 27 amendments crossed that threshold into law, six fell short. You can review this historical pipeline in the Congressional Research Service guide to the amendment process.
These six unratified measures fall into two distinct legal groups. Four proposals contain no sunset dates and remain technically open, while two carried explicit expiration deadlines.
Examining these stalled measures provides practical insight into how constitutional priorities evolve over time. It also highlights the procedural rules that determine whether a ratified text becomes enforceable law.
Congressional Apportionment Amendment
On September 25, 1789, the First Congress submitted 12 amendments to the states as part of the initial Bill of Rights package. Representative James Madison placed this measure first, designating it Article the First.
The amendment established a mathematical sliding scale to regulate the size of the House of Representatives. Framers worried that growing populations would create massive districts where elected officials lost direct contact with their constituents.
Under its tiered system, the House would expand alongside national census counts. Once the chamber reached 200 members, the formula capped each congressional district at no more than 50,000 citizens per representative.
By June 27, 1792, 11 states had ratified the proposal, concluding with Kentucky. However, Vermont and Kentucky had recently entered the union, raising the total number of states to 15.
That expansion elevated the three-fourths ratification threshold to 12 states. The apportionment measure stalled just one state short of the required total.
You can inspect the legislative drafting history within the Constitution Annotated on Congress.gov. The records demonstrate how close the proposal came to establishing an enormous legislative body.
Because the First Congress included no expiration deadline, Article the First remains technically pending before the states. If 27 additional states ratified the measure today, the modern House would expand exponentially.
Instead of today’s fixed statutory cap of 435 members, the House would require more than 6,000 representatives. Congress averted that scenario by enacting statutory limits, culminating in the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929.
Titles of Nobility Amendment
During the early 19th century, American leaders harbored deep suspicions of European monarchies and foreign influence. Senator Philip Reed of Maryland championed a resolution to tighten the Constitution’s existing foreign emoluments clauses.
The Senate approved the resolution 19–5 on April 27, 1810, and the House passed it 87–3 on May 1, 1810. You can inspect the roll-call proceedings in the Library of Congress Century of Lawmaking collection.
The amendment proposed stripping United States citizenship from any person who accepted a title of nobility from an emperor, king, or foreign state. It also revoked citizenship for accepting unauthorized foreign pensions or offices.
State legislatures initially embraced the measure, and ratifications accumulated steadily over the following two years. New Hampshire became the 12th state to ratify the amendment on December 9, 1812.
The measure needed approvals from 14 of the 17 states in the union, leaving it two states short. When Louisiana attained statehood in April 1812, the necessary threshold increased to 14 of 18 states.
Poor record-keeping and slow transit produced a persistent historical myth that Virginia had ratified the measure. As a result, several official state statute books printed between 1815 and 1818 mistakenly included it as the 13th Amendment.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams investigated the matter in 1818, confirming that Virginia had postponed consideration indefinitely. Because Congress imposed no deadline, this proposal remains legally pending before modern state legislatures.
Corwin Amendment
In early 1861, the United States stood on the brink of civil war following the secession of several southern states. Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio introduced a constitutional compromise designed to entice southern states back into the union.
The House passed House Joint Resolution 80 by a 133–65 vote on February 28, 1861. The Senate approved the joint resolution 24–12 on March 2, 1861, sending it forward.
The text prohibited any future constitutional amendment empowering Congress to abolish or interfere with “domestic institutions” in any state. Everyone in Washington understood that the phrase referred directly to chattel slavery.
Outgoing President James Buchanan signed the resolution on March 2, 1861. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that presidential signatures carry no constitutional weight under Article V amendment proceedings.
President Abraham Lincoln explicitly referenced the pending amendment during his First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861. Lincoln stated he had no objection to making state domestic protections express and irrevocable.
Only five states ever ratified the measure: Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Illinois. The bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861 quickly rendered the political compromise obsolete.
Three states later formally rescinded their ratifications from legislative journals. The Ohio legislature rescinded in 1864, Maryland followed in 2014, and Illinois acted in 2022.
The ratification of the genuine 13th Amendment in December 1865 abolished slavery nationwide, making the Corwin Amendment legally unenforceable. It survives as a striking record of pre-war legislative compromise.
Child Labor Amendment
During the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of children worked long hours in textile mills, coal mines, and factories. Congress attempted to restrict the practice, but the Supreme Court repeatedly invalidated federal statutes.
The Supreme Court struck down a federal commerce ban on child-made goods in Hammer v. Dagenhart in 1918. Four years later, the justices struck down a federal excise tax in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.
Frustrated by judicial limits on the Commerce Clause, Congress approved House Joint Resolution 184 on June 2, 1924. The House voted 297–69 in favor, while the Senate approved it 61–23.
The proposal granted Congress the explicit constitutional power to “limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age.” It also preserved state authority to enact stricter youth labor laws.
A fierce counter-campaign organized by industrial manufacturers and farm bureaus stalled state ratifications. By 1937, only 28 state legislatures had approved the text, concluding with Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, and New Mexico.
Opponents challenged Kansas’s delayed ratification, culminating in the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Coleman v. Miller in 1939. The court held that the timeliness of ratifications is a political question reserved for Congress.
The amendment became practically moot when the Supreme Court abandoned its restrictive economic precedents. In United States v. Darby (1941), the court unanimously upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
That ruling established federal authority to prohibit oppressive child labor by statute without needing a constitutional amendment. Because the 1924 resolution contained no expiration date, the proposal remains technically open today.
Equal Rights Amendment
Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party originally drafted the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923. Almost 50 years later, Representative Martha Griffiths filed a discharge petition that forced the measure to the House floor.
The House approved the amendment 354–24 in October 1971, and the Senate cleared it 84–8 on March 22, 1972. The central clause guarantees that equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.
Congress placed a seven-year ratification deadline within the resolution’s proposing clause, setting an expiration date of March 22, 1979. By 1977, 35 states had ratified the amendment.
Five state legislatures subsequently voted to rescind their approvals between 1973 and 1979: Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota. In 1978, Congress passed a controversial joint resolution extending the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982.
No additional states ratified before the 1982 deadline passed, leaving the measure three states short. The amendment lay dormant until state lawmakers launched a renewed ratification drive decades later.
Three states voted to ratify decades past the deadline: Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in January 2020. Supporters argued that these votes brought the total to the 38 states required by Article V.
However, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in January 2020 declaring the 1982 deadline binding. In Illinois v. Ferriero (2023), the D.C.
Circuit affirmed that the Archivist could not be compelled to certify the amendment.
On January 17, 2025, President Joe Biden issued a statement recognizing the ERA as the 28th Amendment. The National Archivist declined to certify or publish the text based on binding legal precedent, and the subsequent administration archived the statement.
You can review the official uncertified standing of the proposal through the National Archives records of unratified amendments. The dispute remains one of the most litigated questions in constitutional law.
District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment
Residents of Washington, D.C. secured three presidential electors under the 23rd Amendment in 1961, but lacked congressional representation. Civil rights leaders spent the 1970s pushing Congress to grant the federal district full legislative representation.
On August 22, 1978, the Senate approved House Joint Resolution 554 by a 67–32 vote, following the House’s 289–127 passage. You can examine Senate roll-call votes in the United States Senate amendment records.
The amendment treated the District of Columbia as if it were a state for congressional representation, presidential elections, and constitutional amendment ratifications. It would have awarded the capital two United States Senators and at least one voting Representative.
The text also provided for the explicit repeal of the 23rd Amendment upon full ratification. That mechanism avoided giving district residents duplicate representation in the Electoral College.
Learning from the legal battles over the ERA, Congress placed an express seven-year deadline directly into Section 4 of the amendment. That legislative design embedded the time limit within the substantive constitutional text submitted to states.
Opposition centered on the Constitution’s enclaves clause in Article I, Section 8, and partisan concerns regarding balance in the Senate. When Delaware ratified in 1984, it became only the 16th state to approve the text.
The amendment officially expired on August 22, 1985, falling 22 states short of the required three-fourths majority. It remains the most recent constitutional amendment approved by Congress to be submitted to the states.
| Amendment Proposal | Proposed Date | Ratifications Recorded | Ratification Deadline | Modern Legal Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Congressional Apportionment | Sept. 25, 1789 | 11 states | None | Technically pending |
| Titles of Nobility | May 1, 1810 | 12 states | None | Technically pending |
| Corwin Amendment | March 2, 1861 | 5 states | None | Moot; 3 rescissions |
| Child Labor | June 2, 1924 | 28 states | None | Technically pending |
| Equal Rights (ERA) | March 22, 1972 | 38 states (disputed) | June 30, 1982 | Uncertified; expired deadline |
| D.C. Voting Rights | Aug. 22, 1978 | 16 states | Aug. 22, 1985 | Expired |
What the Unratified Amendments Reveal About the Amending Process
The history of these six unratified amendments reveals the immense structural resistance built into the Article V framework. Clearing a two-thirds majority in Congress requires exceptional national consensus, but securing 38 states proves vastly more difficult.
Ratification deadlines emerged as a defining procedural innovation during the early 20th century. Before proposing the 18th Amendment in 1917, Congress sent resolutions to the states with no time restrictions whatsoever.
In Dillon v. Gloss (1921), the Supreme Court upheld congressional authority to attach reasonable deadlines to amendment resolutions. The justices reasoned that amendment proposals should reflect a contemporaneous national consensus across the states.
Where lawmakers place that deadline carries decisive legal consequences for the amending process. A deadline placed inside the amendment text binds everyone unconditionally once submitted to the states.
In contrast, placing a deadline in the proposing resolution’s preamble invites protracted litigation regarding whether Congress can extend or repeal it. The unresolved status of the Equal Rights Amendment illustrates this legal dilemma.
State rescissions represent another major unresolved procedural puzzle in American constitutional law. When states attempt to cancel prior ratifications before an amendment crosses the threshold, federal precedent leaves that determination entirely to Congress.
The dramatic ratification of the 27th Amendment in 1992 proved that ancient proposals can become law unexpectedly. That pay limitation measure was proposed in 1789, slumbered for two centuries, and finally achieved certification after public interest surged.
When the formal amendment process stalls, national policymakers routinely accomplish their policy goals through statutory alternatives. Congress established minimum wages, overtime protections, and child labor prohibitions through commerce legislation that federal courts subsequently upheld.
Understanding these six unratified proposals helps you navigate contemporary debates over constitutional reform. Achieving permanent legal change requires coordinating legislative majorities, state political campaigns, and strict adherence to Article V procedure.
Frequently Asked Questions About Unratified Amendments
Can a state legislature rescind its ratification before certification?
Article V does not mention rescissions, leaving the issue contested among constitutional scholars. Historical precedent from the Reconstruction era indicates that Congress and federal officials do not recognize state attempts to rescind ratifications.
When New Jersey and Ohio voted to rescind their ratifications of the 14th Amendment in 1868, Congress ignored those votes. Lawmakers instructed Secretary of State William Seward to count both states toward the final three-fourths total.
Federal courts have generally avoided ruling on rescissions, treating the verification of ratifications as a political question for Congress. Until either Congress or the Supreme Court establishes a definitive rule, the legal effect of rescissions remains disputed.
Why did the 27th Amendment pass after 202 years while others stalled?
The 27th Amendment succeeded because the First Congress attached no expiration deadline when proposing it in 1789. In 1982, a sophomore at the University of Texas discovered the dormant proposal and began lobbying state legislatures.
The proposal addressed a non-partisan issue by delaying congressional pay raises until after an intervening election took place. That broad appeal allowed the measure to gather ratifications across several decades without substantial organized opposition.
When Michigan became the 38th state in May 1992, the Archivist of the United States certified the amendment. Congress immediately passed a concurrent resolution recognizing the certification, formally validating the 202-year ratification campaign.
Does the President have the power to veto an amendment?
The President plays no constitutional role in proposing, approving, or vetoing constitutional amendments under Article V. The entire amendment mechanism belongs exclusively to Congress and the state legislatures.
The Supreme Court established this principle in Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), ruling that the Presentment Clause does not apply to amendments. Consequently, amendment resolutions bypass the White House and travel directly from Congress to the states.
While President James Buchanan signed the Corwin Amendment in 1861, his signature was purely ceremonial and carried no legal force. Similarly, presidential executive statements declaring an amendment ratified cannot supersede the statutory certification process.
Could Congress retroactively eliminate an expired ratification deadline?
Scholars and federal litigators remain divided over whether Congress can retroactively alter or eliminate an expired deadline. Supporters argue that because Congress established the deadline through a resolution, a subsequent Congress can vote to eliminate it.
Opponents argue that once a ratification deadline expires, the underlying constitutional offer to the states lapses permanently. Under this view, approving an expired amendment requires Congress to introduce and pass a brand-new joint resolution by two-thirds votes.
Federal courts have not endorsed retroactive deadline removal, consistently dismissing lawsuits seeking to force certification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Consequently, any attempt to revive an expired amendment faces immense constitutional and judicial hurdles.
