Ratifying and amending the constitution has required the Federalists to provide assurances that the amendments would be passed only if they protect the individual liberties, in the matter that the national government cannot violate. Since the ratification of the Bill of Rights, tens of thousands of amendments have been proposed, yet only a solid ten amendments made it as the framework and today we have twenty seven have been ratified as part of the federal constitution. The reason so few of these amendments made is because of the founding fathers, in Article V, the process is difficult because there are two ways to propose an amendment and two ways to ratify one. To propose an amendment: a two-thirds vote in both houses of congress or a vote at a national constitutional convention by Congress and request of two-thirds of states legislatures. An amendment can be ratified: by three-fourths of state legislatures or three-fourths of states at special conventions (Sidlow, 2015, 45-46). Therefore, amending the federal constitution is difficult because it requires the majority of state legislatures or congress to propose an amendment and to be ratified and it prevents amendments based off of political notions from being irreversibly added to the federal constitution.
Amending the federal constitution is difficult because it requires the majority of state legislatures or congress to propose an amendment to be ratified in a few ways. These methods to propose and ratify an amendment comes from the framers Article V. Basically, the framers made the process of amending the constitution difficult because they didn’t want the constitution changed for any transient or light reasons, based on the idea that stability was crucial for the young America at the time (Sidlow, 2015, 45-46). For example, as for civil liberties and same-sex marriage, there have been amendments proposed to ban same-sex marriage and the reason it has yet to be successful is because it would be the very first amendment in history to literally deny the right to LGBTQ citizen minorities. This is one argument as to why amending the federal constitution is not an easy process.
Next, amending the federal constitution is difficult because it prevents amendments based off of political notions from being irreversibly added to the federal constitution. In our history, there have been few changes to the constitution structurally, of those changes included further expansion of civil liberties like ending slavery, equal voting rights and etc. However, the one exception to expansion of liberty was the amending on Prohibition (Sidlow, 2015, 45-46 & History.com). The Prohibition amendment is the only amendment that repealed another amendment. For issues like flag-burning, the first amendment shamelessly protects individuals from not being able to burn a flag. For a member of congress to take their stand on an issue like flag-burning, he/she would have to propose this and unfortunately, the odds against him/her are very high in getting the amendment approved. Personally, flag-burning is by all means inappropriate and wrong, the first amendment protects these individuals and would require a completely different constitution to ban flag-burning or if an amendment to prevent this were to arise; it would be the second amendment in the history of the U.S. to repeal another amendment (ACLU). This is all another reason why amending the federal constitution is difficult.
In conclusion, amending the federal constitution is difficult because it prevents amendments based on political urges from being irreversibly added to the federal constitution and it requires the majority of state legislatures or congress to propose an amendment and to be ratified. There hasn’t been many changes to the federal constitution due to the framers idea of stability for a young America. Thanks to Article V, many congressional and state legislatures are always in against the odds of an amendment to being approved. Issues from flag-burning to same-sex marriage have yet to be successful, as they would repeal another amendment and deny an individual’s civil liberty.