The United States has a total of twenty seven Amendments in their constitution since it was ratified in 1788. In this essay I will be writing about the Bill of Rights and the other Amendments.
The Bill Of Rights
The first ten Amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was passed on September 25th, 1789, but was ratified on December 15th, 1791. The Bill of Rights sounds exactly like it is. They reaffirmed the basic rights of the citizens of the United States to prevent the abuses that the British Parliament had befallen on the colonists before the Revolution.
Some of the most well known Amendments in the Bill of Rights are:
The First Amendment: Freedoms, Petitions, Assembly, in other words the right of freedom of speech and religion.
The Second Amendment: the right to bear arms, this Amendment states that an individual can have an arm(or gun), and use it lawfully such as for self defense in the home.
The Other Amendments
There are more but probably these are the most well known and famous out of the ten. After the Bill of Rights another seventeen Amendments were passed overtime, the most recent passed, was passed in 1992! So not all were passed right after the United States became a nation. The other seventeen Amendments covered a variety of topics such as slavery, electons, civil rights, taxes, and etc.
The most well known of these other Amendments that are not included in the Bill of Rights are:
The 13th Amendment: the abolition of slavery, this Amendment stated that slavery is no longer allowed.
The 15th Amendment: the Black or African American suffrage, which gave the vote to any citizen of the United States no matter race or color.
The 19th Amendment: the women’s suffrage, which was the Amendment that stated that women could have the right to vote.
Some examples of Amendments that have to do with Presidents and elections are the 22nd, and the 25th Amendments. The 22nd Amendment is the Amendment that states the term limits for the presidency, which is two four year terms. The 25th Amendment states the laws of Presidential succession, which includes the rules on vice presidents, etc.
Conclusion
The Amendments are the later changes that were made of the American Constitution, that add new and important laws. This is a very basic overview of this topic, and there are way more facts about these Amendments but that would make a very long essay.
The Dreamer 