23
AMENDMENTS
TO THE
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
25
1 In Dillon v. Gloss, 256 U.S. 368 (1921), the Supreme Court stated that it would take judi-
cial notice of the date on which a State ratified a proposed constitutional amendment. Accord-
ingly the Court consulted the State journals to determine the dates on which each house of
the legislature of certain States ratified the Eighteenth Amendment. It, therefore, follows that
the date on which the governor approved the ratification, or the date on which the secretary
of state of a given State certified the ratification, or the date on which the Secretary of State
of the United States received a copy of said certificate, or the date on which he proclaimed that
the amendment had been ratified are not controlling. Hence, the ratification date given in the
following notes is the date on which the legislature of a given State approved the particular
amendment (signature by the speaker or presiding officers of both houses being considered a
part of the ratification of the ‘‘legislature’’). When that date is not available, the date given
is that on which it was approved by the governor or certified by the secretary of state of the
particular State. In each case such fact has been noted. Except as otherwise indicated informa-
tion as to ratification is based on data supplied by the Department of State.
2 Brackets enclosing an amendment number indicate that the number was not specifically
assigned in the resolution proposing the amendment. It will be seen, accordingly, that only the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Amendments were thus technically ratified by
number. The first ten amendments along with two others that were not ratified were proposed
by Congress on September 25, 1789, when they passed the Senate, having previously passed
the House on September 24 (1 Annals of Congress 88, 913). They appear officially in 1 Stat.
97. Ratification was completed on December 15, 1791, when the eleventh State (Virginia) ap-
proved these amendments,