Why The US Constitution Is Nearly IMPOSSIBLE to Amend

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]Why is the Constitution so hard to amend? The challenge of amending the US Constitution.

[00:00:06]When the US Constitution was ratified in 1789, it established not only a government by the people, but also provided a mechanism for the people to alter [music] the Constitution itself.

[00:00:17]However, this process has proven remarkably difficult in practice.

[00:00:22]Of the nearly 11,000 amendments proposed over more than two centuries, only 27 have succeeded as of 2025. The intended difficulty of amending the Constitution stems from its original design. Founders of the United States faced the challenge of creating a unified country from 13 different colonies, each requiring assurance that their mutual commitments couldn't be easily undone.

[00:00:44]This need for stability [music] led them to establish extraordinarily high barriers for constitutional change and create cohesion.

[00:00:51]For the complete amendment process and a review of each amendment to the Constitution, subscribe to Constitutional Sound Bites on YouTube and take the free 12-part course, Constitutional Sound Bites.

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