Failed Constitutional Amendments | History Teacher Reacts

There have been over 12,000 amendments that have failed to be ratified into the United States Constitution. Which ones had the best shot of going in? Which ones do YOU think should go in? Props to @zxcgorb on a great video!

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[MrTerry]

Which failed amendments do you think SHOULD be passed?

[capstonecowboy]

The difficulty of amending the constitution and passing federal laws is a feature not a bug.

[obiwan]

The constitution should absolutely be hard to amend. If it was easier, basic rights could be overturned far too easily.

[jakecarroll]

If I remember correctly, didn't that proposed one making war declaration a referendum also say that if it passed all of those who voted yes would have to enlist?

[NghtStalkerNL]

The fact that "No taxation without representation" is a partisan thing now in America is just disturbingly hilarious.

[alexluksich]

On the war amendment, wasn't ww2 the last time the US officially "declared war" thus defeating the purpose? Or would they try to enforce the spirit of it?

[copocopocopocopo]

6:33 Just two, Wyoming (last) and Vermont (50th). So, if treated like a state, it'd rank 49th in terms of population. However, trends have it passing Alaska pretty soon too, so...

[marcuswohl]

The best argument i could think of for making the constitution easier to ammend is that it keeps the power with the people that the government is supposed to work for. When it is nearly impossible to ammend it makes it much more difficult for the laws and rights to change as the will and desires of the people start to change.

[hart-of-gold]

Australia's Constitution is based for most parts on the US or UK constitutions, whichever suited Australia better. But changing the contitution is a part where we differ greatly from the US, and the UK at that time (IIRC). Our contitution is changed by Referendum (direct vote). First a bill to hold a referendum needs to pass through Parliament. Then everyone votes on a yes or no question, with the referendum passing if both a majority overall, and a majority is reached in a majority of states vote yes.

added an 'a'

[RobertGrif]

The reason Washington DC is not part of a state is because the Founding Fathers were worried about a state having too much power over the federal government, especially since Pennsylvania refused to aid Congress in an attempted coup in 1783.

In 1783, the war was winding to a close, and thousands of soldiers were getting ready to go home and start a new life in the new nation they had fought and died for. There was one problem, though: the Continental Congress had fallen behind on their pay.

This had been a perennial problem during the war. Congress controlled the Continental Army and was responsible for funding it, but since Congress had no power to tax, it had to depend on the states for funding. And the states were not exactly known for actually providing the money they promised. Combine this with perennial corruption and mismanagement along the supply lines, and the average American soldier spent the war underpaid and under-supplied. Soldiers mutinied time and again, and while sometimes Congress was able to negotiate a settlement for a particular unit’s grievances, the root problem remained.

Finally, on June 20, 1783, 400 American soldiers decided that they had been ignored and mistreated long enough. They marched up to Independence Hall in Philadelphia to confront Congress. This could very well have been the end of the Continental Congress, right then and there, but luckily for them Alexander Hamilton managed to persuade the mutineers to let them adjourn for the day to consider their grievances and find a compromise.

In fact, the Hamilton and several of his fellow Congressmen used the tiny breathing space the soldiers gave them to meet in secret that night. They wrote an urgent message to the government of Pennsylvania begging for aid. The state’s leaders, for reasons that have never been quite clear, refused the Congress’s request. Perhaps they were sympathetic to the mutineers, or thought the matter could be resolved peacefully?

Whatever the reason, Congress decided not to wait around to find out and instead skipped town, setting up shop in Princeton, New Jersey. They had survived the coup, but had seen just how precarious their position was. The experience was one of the key reasons we now have Washington, D.C. as our nation’s capital – if the states couldn’t be relied on to protect the federal government, then the federal government would be better served to not be based in any state.

[furriesinouterspaceUnited]

If women aint required to serve then im not serving either

[PsychicWars]

I think that such a high bar for passage of laws and amendments is necessary to ensure that laws have broad support. The flipside of seeming government inaction and hyperpartisanship is knowing that an unpopular law can't be forced through by a slim majority that doesn't represent the will of a sizable portion of the American people.

Thanks for this video, Mr. Terry! I'm always impressed by the amount of detail and context you provide on your reaction videos.

[lison_erdlt]

Terry I wanna see you dunk that basket on the door

[historyking]

One problem with the term limits thing. We have term limits for the president so why not congress. The same things would apply

[GOODYGOODGOOD]

20:48 Just ask Ancient Athens how amazing that turned out... oh wait (to put it mildly, that first part was sarcasm). Keep in mind the people who opposed the Vietnam War were the minority until the Tet offense, and anyone who knows anything about military history knows that there is a long list of wars that were a complete disaster and/or should never have been fought that the public supported.

[DarthMalevolence]

Id like to see something close to the Balanced Budget Amendment. I do think we need some sort of debt to operate, but seeing how it is now, there should be a percentage cap, based on the debt to GDP ratio.

[kaythough]

A problem with constitutional amendments is that they now only functionally happen with the Supreme Court getting to decide how the constitution is interpreted.

[Aragon]

Rome fell when Consuls started getting exemptions to their term limits term limits are good for long term stability

[AnarchyShogun]

The 17th amendment was a MASSIVE mistake. It went a long way towards reducing the notoriety of state level politicians, which both pushed more and more issues up to the federal level, and allowed state level governments to become dysfunctional hives of mediocrity. Now, all of the attention is paid to the federal government, even though the state governments actually affect citizens daily lives much more, and most people can't name even one of their local state representatives or elected officials.

[IkedaHakubi]

It is disheartening that the Balanced Budget Amendment came closer than the Equal Rights Amendment.