Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 84

The Articles of Confederation had all but precluded amendments by requiring that they receive unanimous support from all the states. The framers now made the process easier, but not so easy that amendments would overwhelm the Constitution. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution stands out not only for its longevity but also for its relatively few amendments as compared with the constitutions of the states and many other countries. Plenty of amendments have been suggested (well over 10,000), but only 33 have been formally proposed to the states and only 27 of those have been ratified. The first 10 of these make up the Bill of Rights.⁴⁷ (See Table 2.3 for descriptions of the six formally proposed amendments that were never ratified.)

Table 2.3

Source: Mount, Steve. “Constitutional Topic: The Census.” (http://www.usconstitution.net/constamfail.html).

As a stark contrast, consider France, which has had 15 different constitutions since 1789 and has existed under monarchy and dictatorship as well as under various republics. France’s current constitution was introduced in 1958 and, as of 2018, had already been amended 18 times. Or take an example from within the United States: The state of Alabama has had six constitutions since becoming the twenty-second state in 1819, and its current one—adopted in 1901—has been amended 928 times⁴⁸ as of 2018. The stability of the U.S. Constitution is partly attributable to its ambiguity. That ambiguity has allowed flexibility in interpreting the Constitution, and flexibility of interpretation has helped to ward off frequent amendments.