Member-only story
Expanding Article Five
The Founders made the Constitution difficult to amend on purpose.
It’s understandable they didn’t want anybody fooling with a document that had been so hard to put together in a manner that had a chance of being ratified.
Perhaps as a result, things have a history of getting bent if not broken to avoid the two methods set out in Article Five — -even as history marches on and unanticipated but critical situations arise.
Say, for example, a weapon that could (as we used to claim when I was in the Air Force) take the top three inches off the Soviet Union and the top six inches off the United States with no way to stop holocaust after decisions that have to be made in minutes.
The Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress, which cannot order a pizza in minutes. This means the power moves elsewhere. It’s become the president, but it could have been the chair of the joint chiefs of staff or the cabinet level secretary never created, the secretary of peace.
For the record, an amendment can be passed by two thirds of both houses of Congress.
Or, a constitutional convention can be convened by two thirds of state legislatures and…
