Conventional Wisdom: The Alternate Article V Mechanism for Proposing Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

by John R. Vile

Overview

Article V of the Constitution allows two-thirds majorities of both houses of Congress to propose amendments to the document and a three-fourths majority of the states to ratify them. Scholars and frustrated advocates of constitutional change have often criticized this process for being too difficult. Despite this, state legislatures have yet to use the other primary method that Article V outlines for proposing amendments: it permits two-thirds of the state legislatures to petition Congress to call a convention to propose amendments that, like those proposed by Congress, must be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

In this book, John R. Vile surveys more than two centuries of scholarship on Article V and concludes that the weight of the evidence (including a much-overlooked Federalist essay) indicates that states and Congress have the legal right to limit the scope of such conventions to a single subject and that political considerations would make a runaway convention unlikely. Charting a prudent course between those who fail to differentiate revolutionary change from constitutional change, those who fear ever using the Article V convention mechanism that the Framers clearly envisioned, and those who would vest total control of the convention in Congress, the states, or thebconvention itself, Vile’s work will enhance modern debates on the subject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820348995
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	03/01/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

JOHN R. VILE is a professor of political science and dean of the University Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. He has written extensively on the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the constitutional amending process, proposed alternatives to the U.S. Constitution, and Supreme Court decisions and other contemporary understandings of the document. Vile is the author of numerous books on the U.S. Constitution and the constitutional amending process and of The Wisest Council in the World: Restoring the Character Sketches by William Pierce of Georgia of the Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (Georgia).

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Chapter 1 The Constitutional Convention of 1787 and Its Origins 1

Chapter 2 The Establishment of the Amending Provisions in Article V and the Ratification Provisions in Article VII 24

Chapter 3 The History of Constitutional Amendments in the United States 49

Chapter 4 The Late Eighteenth Century and Nineteenth Century Provide a Rival Set of Convention Precedents 63

Chapter 5 A Survey of Early Commentary on Article V 76

Chapter 6 The Modern Debate over Limiting Conventions 101

Chapter 7 Using Criteria and Ideal Types to Think about the Big Picture 113

Chapter 8 The Selection and Likely Characteristics of Delegates 125

Chapter 9 Organizational and Logistical Issues Related to Article V Conventions 151

Chapter 10 Different Kinds of Conventions 171

Appendix: Timeline 197

Notes 203

Selected Bibliography 243

Index 261

Editorial Reviews

Vile provides a methodical, expert, and very fair-minded analysis of the process of amending the U.S. Constitution through a state-initiated national convention. . . . This timely, useful book will interest scholars of public and constitutional law as well as those general readers who avidly devour books on the Constitution.

Choice - D. B. Robertson