Grey Matters: Blog: US Constitutional Amendment Mnemonics (Part II)

US Constitutional Amendment Mnemonics (Part II)

Published on Thursday, October 08, 2009 in memory, self improvement, TV, videos

Mdgilkison's We The People graphic Have you been practicing the first 9 constitutional amendments? I hope so, because it's time to move on to amendments 10 through 18!

Amendment 9 and amendment 10 sort of work together. While 9 says people have rights not spelled out in the US Constitution, 10 says that the United States (as in, the federal government) has only those powers explicitly spelled out in the US Constitution. The remaining powers are delegated to the states or the people. This is sometimes known as the “state's rights” amendment. Since the phrase “state right” has 10 letters, it's easy to remeber that it's the 10th amendment.

While there's still 17 amendments to go, you now already know the complete Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments).

1 citizen may not sue 1 state that isn't the citizen's own with permission from the defending's states court. These two “1s” are kept seperate by a number that brings two “1s” together, amendment 11.

Amendment 12 covers the elections of America's jobs “1” and “2”, that of the US President and US Vice-President. This amendment requires separate ballots to be cast for each office.

The next 3 amendments can be thought of as the “Post-Civil War” amendments, as they all deal with issues concerning the former slaves, and all were ratified in 5 or less years after the Civil War.

Amendment 13 freed the slaves. It's not too hard to think of how there were only 13 colonies when America liberated itself from the British. Just remember that 13 amendments after the 13 colonies were liberated, the slaves were liberated as well.

The are many different parts to the 14th amendment, but it all boils down to foreign-born citizens and natural-born citizens having the same rights. Think of this amendment as giving equal rights to “Foreignteen”-born citizens, and this should be easy to remember.

Amendment 15 basically says that every man may vote, regardless of whether or not he was a former slave (women still couldn't vote when this amendment was ratified). The phrase “Every man may vote” has 15 letters, making this one easy to remember.

Taxes, in the US, are due on April 15th. If you send them in on or after April 16th, you can get in big trouble. Since it's the 16th amendment that gives the federal government power to tax, just link April 16th, as the day when the federal government should have their money, to amendment 16, as the reason why they're getting that money.

The election of senators is the subject of amendment 17. I've actually found 2 good mnemonics for remembering this. First, the phrase “elect your senators” has 17 letters. Also, 7-1 (from the number 17) equals 6, which is the number of years for which a senator serves.

This post will now be rounded out by amendment 18, which bans the the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. Currently, this is the only constitutional amendment ever to be repealed, which was done by the 21st amendment. It's not only best to remember these two together, but also quite easy. Just imagine you live in a state where you can't drink at 18, but you can drink at 21.

Practice these mnemonics, and go over the first 9, as well. Once you have them down, you'll actually to be able to recall more than 2/3rds of the the US Constitutional Amendments!

This coming Sunday, we'll wrap things up with the final 9 amendments. Actually, since we skipped ahead to the 21st when talking about the 18th amendment, there's really only 8 more you need to learn.