popular movement of the whole negro race in the united states. >> sunday "in depth" will feature a live discussion on the presidency of barack obama. we'll taking your tweets during the program. includes april ryan, white house correspondence, and author of "the presidency in black and white, my up close view of presidents in america." princeton author eddie glaude. and pull itser prize winning journalist, david maranies. wch "in depth" live from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern on sunday on book tv on c-span2. each week american history tv's american artifacts visits museums, archives and historic places. 225 years ago on december 15th,

1791 virginia balk the 11th of 14 states to ratify the first ten amendments to the u.s. constitution. since three-quarters of the state are constitutionally required for ratification, the bill of rights then became law. amending american is a national archives exhibit marking the anniversary by exploring the history and the process of amending the constitution. this tour of the exhibit is about 45 minutes. >> hi, my name is jennifer johnson and i'm a curiator with the national archives museum, and co-cure rater for amending america. >> i'm christine blackerby, i'm also co-cure r curator of amending america. >> woerp 'about to take you through amending america. right next to me is a case showing the more than 11,000 amendments that have been proposed to the constitution. christine and i have been working on this exhibit for a couple of years now, although research started almost four

years ago, and we couldn't help but notice that the variety and depth of amends in the stack when we were walking through the stack and realize there have been more than 11,000 proposed to the constitution, and we started asking ourselves why there have been so many yet so few actually ratified. so the exhibit begins to explore that idea and how the founding fathers set up our government and allowed us to amend when need he. one of our challenges for the exhibit was that the bill of rights actually lives in the rotunda, which is a different area of the museum. we decided as a team to have a banner literally lead visitor from the bill of rights to the o'brien gallery a on that banner are the more than 11,000 amendments proposed in congress. it was a small team of staff and volunteers who worked over the course of last summer to literally transcribe from a variety of government publications into one document the more than 11,000 amendments. the bill of rights was the

first ten amendments to the constitution, so we decided to open up the gallery with those first ten amendments, which are collectively known as the bill of rights. but we also wanted to explain how we got to have a bill of rights in the first place. and it wasn't -- it wasn't guaranteed that we would have one. in fact, at the constitution alcon vengs in 1787 in philadelphia, when the delegates were talking about the bill of rights they took a vote on whether or not they should include one in the constitution, and this document right here, which is the voting record from the constitution alcon vengal c sos when they took a vote, which is about two-thirds of the page down here, the vote was actually 0-10 on including a bill of rights in the constitution. so the delegates to the constitutional convention didn't think it was needed with the constitution. but then after the convention

was over, the constitution was sent to the states for ratification, and the states did not agree with the delegates of the convention that it wasn't needed. so one of the states that disagreed was the state of new york, and this is two pages of the six pages of the state of new york's ratification of the constitution. what happened in new york and several other states was that they decided to ratify the constitution and to use that as the start of a new governmental system, but when they did it they also suggested a bunch of amendments that they think should be included in the new constitution. so they were hoping that after the constitution went into effect that the new representatives to the first congress would use article five of the constitution, which explains how to make an amendment to the constitution, and add new things to it. so in new york's ratification document right here, here is the

beginning of a list of amendments that new york wanted to see added to the constitution. there are several ones here that sound very familiar to people who have read the bill of rights and are familiar with it, including that no person ought to be put twice in jeopardy of life or limb, that cruel nor unusual punishments be inflicted, that the people have a right to keep can and bear arms. so a lot of the words that the state of new york used in their ratification documents ended up in the bill of rights. when our visitors to the lawrence f. o'brien gallery come in one of the first things they see is this montage of photos and film clips showing americans actually using their first amendment rights to free exercise of religion, free press, free speech, the right to

assemble and the right to petition their government. over here is one of my favorite documents in the gallery. it is a draft version of what became the bill of rights, and we usually refer to this as the senate markup. what you actually see when you look at this document is you see printed text that is 17 amendments as they were passed by the house of representatives. then you see handwritten notations that were made on top of it, and those are the changes, additions and deletions that were made in the senate as the senate deliberated over these. the senate took the 17 amendments that were passed by the house and changed them into 12 amendments that after a conference committee it was 12 amendments that were sent to the states for ratification, and ten of those 12 were ratified by the states and became the first ten amendments to the constitution, our bill of rights. what is listed here as article

the third and article the fourth are what later became what we know as the first amendment to the constitution, and that includes most of the rights that a lot of people are familiar with. and if you look closely at the markings here -- and there are a lot of markings here, a lot of ink spilled in the senate over these clauses, the most ink was spilled on the clauses that have to do with the free exercise and establishment of religion. after the bill of rights was sent to the states for ratification, many states did ratify, and this document here is the ratification from the state of virginia, which was the 11th out of the then 14 states to ratify. that brought the amendments up to the constitutional railway required brailway -- required bar of three-quarters to ratify. this document was signed on

december 15th, 1791. and that is the date we now celebrate as bill of rights day, and sinceit is the 225th annive of this document we are celebrating at the national archives. one of the best known rights in the bill of right is the right to petition your government for redress of grievances. this document right here is a really great example of that happening. it represents the fairly typical method by which people did petition their government for most of the 18th and 19th and into the 20th century. the way they did it was the petitioners would print the text of whatever it is they were advocating for and then leave the remainder of the page blank for signatures. they would make multiple copies of this and they would go out into the countryside to the places where people gather, to churches and taverns, and they

would collect as many signatures as they could. then the petition organizers would gather them together and actually glue each page end to end to form one giant document, and it was this style of document, and they roll it up like a scroll, and this is how it would actually be presented on the floor of the house of representatives or the senate. we have given our visitors the opportunity to see what petitioning looks like in the 21st century. we have an ipad here that is shown on the "we the people" website of the obama administration, and this is a website set up for people to submit petitions directly to the white house about whatever topic it is that they want. if that petition gets over 100,000 signatures within 30 days, the administration will respond directly. so right here our visitors can see what 18th century petitioning looks like and what

21st century petitioning looks like. another story in the bill of rights is our fifth amendment right to not incriminate ourselves. concerned about the supreme court decision miranda v. arizona in 1966, the court affirmed persons who were arrested had the right to remain silent or to not incriminate themselves and that's where the miranda warning was born. so we worked with the history channel to create this montage of clips from different shows and movies of people who are being put under arrest being read their miranda warning. rounding out the bill of rights theme is this poster that was created during the bicentennial of the constitution. it was something we like because it gives you a nice distinct visual illustration of each of the amendments of the constitution, exempt for the 27th which was passed one year after this poster was created. we find it to be a wonderful cheat sheet, if you will, for visitors and staff alike to

really explain and show what each amendment did that was added to the constitution. moving into what we call "the vote," five amendments to the constitution have expanded the right to vote for our citizens. one of our favorite stories here is what we call the widows and spinsters document. amendments are unique in that you need a sustained consensus before they often become successful as being ratified. even though the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, it wasn't exactly that in 1918 or so we decided women should have the right to vote. there had actually been quite a campaign since the 1840s and even earlier for women -- for women women's suffrage. this document shows one of those 11,000 amendments proposed to the constitution, which was an 1888 proposed resolution suggesting that voting rights for widows and spinsters only, and the suggestion was married

women were represented by their husbands. this did not go very far. eventually full voting rights for women was proposed and ratified as the 19th amendment in 1920, but it was a good illustration of how we try many times before we get to the final version of an amendment. this poster also relates to women's suffrage. this is victoria woodhall as the first woman to address the house judiciary committee, and she did so to advocate for women's suffrage, she did and others did at the time, the 14th amendment gave women the right to vote. it guaranteed they were citizens, and she made the argument that voting is a right of citizenship, therefore the 14th amendment granted that right to vote to women. unfortunately for her and for the rest of women, the house judiciary committee didn't buy that argument.

the petition was tabled and nothing further happened at that time. this next section right over here in the section called "the vote" is about one of the amendments that was proposed to expand voting rights that failed. so although there are five amendments to the constitution that have expanded voting rights, in 1978 the congress proposed by a two-thirds vote of both houses a new constitutional amendment that would have given the residents of the district of columbia the right to vote. d.c. residents don't have that right because as -- as residents of a federal district they do not have representation in congress the way a state does with two senators and representatives according to population. so this amendment that congress proposed in 1978 would have changed that and would have made district of columbia to be treated like a state for the purposes of representation in congress. but although the amendment

passed the first part of the amending process as described in article five of the constitution, meaning that it was proposed by a vote of two-thirds of both houses of congress, it did fail the second part of the amendment process, which is that three-quarters of the states have to ratify it. as it turned out, only 16 states out of the required 38 ratified the district of columbia voting rights amendment before its time expired. one of the -- probably the major issue during that debate was the fact that, as this cartoon shows, that residents of the district of columbia pay federal taxes, but because they don't have a vote in congress they don't have any say in how that money is spent. another amendment expanding voting was lowering the voting age too 18 year olds. it was born in world war ii but didn't get enough traction until the vietnam war where 18 year olds being drafted to go to

vietnam became a huge, divisive part of that war. and the 26th amendment is actually the amendment that was ratified the quickest or was ratified in the shortest amount of time. one thing to note is in the amendment process the president has no role. it is just a matter of between congress and the states ratifying it. however, president nixon decided to ceremoniously sign it anyway in addition to inviting three 18-year-olds to participate in signing the certification of the amendment. [applause]. the cartoon next to it kind of explains or shows a good visual of the sentiment that especially men who are being drafted off to war felt they were not yet 21, how they felt

on this issue. one of -- the sixth amendment that got closest to passing and didn't quite make it, congress has proposed 33 amendments, the states ratified 27 of those. one of those which has taken up quite a bit of those 11,000, in fact more than 1100 times, has an amendment for equal rights for men and women proposed in congress is the e.r.a. the e.r.a. was probably closest to being ratified at 35 of 38 states having ratified it before its deadline came to be. so this case is devoted to telling a little bit of that story, with two letters and some photos working through its process in the '70s. this one is sort of a pro e.r.a. letter right here, and it is from liz carpenter, who was an aide to lady byrd johnson in the 1960s and later became a major player in the pro e.r.a. movement, and she explains here

some of the main reasons why people supported it, including equal pay for equal work, was one of the main arguments that women made. this other letter over here is another one of my favorites in the gallery. it is from a woman who we don't know anything about, is just a citizen writing to her member of congress, but she uses extraordinary language to explain her opposition to the e.r.a. and takes the point of view of a traditional homemaker who is interested in maintaining the position of women in the home, and she expresses a little bit of wonderment as to why any woman would want to work outside the home because, she says, that men's jobs are just not that interesting. this is the 14th amendment to the constitution, and it plays a really significant role

in the history not only of our country but especially in the history of the bill of rights. the 14th amendment was ratified in 1868, just three years after the end of the civil war, and its main purpose was to protect the newly-freed slaves from states that would try to take away their -- take away their equality, their citizenship and their freedom again. so the 14th amendment had a number of important clauses, including the clause that says they have equal protection of the laws applying to all persons. it defines anyone born in the united states as a citizen, and it also guarantees the due process of law to every citizen, meaning that every person has a right to a fair trial. but it wasn't until the 20th century that the due process clause began to be interpreted by the supreme court to apply the bill of rights to the state

governments as well. when the bill of rights was first written it only prevented the federal government from abridging those rights. in fact, the first amendment starts, "congress shall make no law." so those protections didn't apply to state governments, so states could abridge the freedom of speech or freedom of religion, just not the federal government. starting in the 20th century, the supreme court began applying the due process clause of the 14th amendment to all of those rights in the bill of rights and said that the -- in order for those rights to be protected the states had to protect them as well, and this process was referred to as incorporation. so it is because of the incorporation of the bill of rights to the states that those rights are truly protected for all-americans today. this 14th amendment is what

we call the enrolled version or the final, signed version that represents the legal final version of the text. it is bound in this book with the other joint resolutions that were passed by congress at the same time, so it is just listed con logically as they were passed. there are other versions of the 14th amendment and of all of the amendments in our records here at the national archives, and especially in the records of congress in the house and senate, but this version of the bill of rights is the official version, and we wanted to put this on display even though it takes up this giant case in the gallery because of the importance of the 14th amendment both to the nation as a whole and to the bill of rights. as christine said, there are many drafts of amendments. what we know or what we call the first 13th amendment is on display. it is also one of the six that got closest to being ratified

but -- or at least congress proposed it but the states did not ratify it. it was proposed -- or it is called the corwin amendment, and it proposed something vastly different than what we know as the 13th amendment which abolished slavery. the corwin amendment would have enshrined slavery into the constitution. it was proposed as a last-ditch effort to save the union as the civil war was brewing. once it went to the states, the civil war had already begun so it never actually reached any threshold for ratification. >> so in is a joint resolution, meaning both houses of congress proposed it and voted on it and got to the two-thirds margin of approval. >> so beyond allowing visitors to understand that it is a high bar for ratification, we really wanted visitors to understand how we can amend and why, and that is told in these series of graphics here. article five, which is on the fourth page of the constitution,

spells out the outlines for how an amendment can be ratified. it is a two-part process. two-thirds of both houses of congress have to vote and approve it, and then it is sent to the states where we need three-quarters of the states to ratify it or add it to the constitutio constitution. once it is ratified by three-fourths of the states it has come to the national archive to be noted that it is a part of the constitution. this is a transcription of article five so people can read it. it lays out the broad guidelines of the process. we think it is important for visitors to understand that the founding fathers gave us this explicit mechanism because they wanted us to be able to change the constitution through votes and not war. up until this point there had never been something like this. it involved a revolution or war

or violence to change the constitution, and the founding fathers wanted a peaceful way, and also knew that they could not have predicted what the government would have needed to protect the citizens or as the country matured they knew that future generations might need to tinker a little bit with the constitution. so they wanted us to have that mechanism. one thing that's interesting is that they want us to amendment everything, actually almost everything. there are only two things that they list in article five that could not be touched. over here we explain that a little bit, in that one is moot now but when they signed the constitution they noted that no amendments could be proposed that would prohibit the importation of slaves until 1808. the issue of slavery divided the founding fathers. they never came to a solution but they did compromise in some ways on that. also, that we would always have equal representation in the senate. so two members from every state

would go to the senate to represent that state. maybe one day there will be four or eight members, but they outlined explicitly that would be something that we could not tinker with, if you will. we also explain that there is a second method for proposing amendments as well as ratifying. both methods have been used very rarely or not at all. the first one in proposing has never been used or has been successful, and that is where three-quarters of state legislatures would submit a petition to congress to call a constituti constitutional convention. we've used the convention method for ratifying once before with our 21st amendment which -- repealed prohibition. we have these graphics here to explain, for example, that laws need a much simpler majority or it is easier to pass a law, and

therefore pass a new law to negate an old law. the process is a two-step process which required consensus both in congress and throughout the states to amendment. with amending with article five which allows us to amend, the founding fathers were striving for a balance of flexibility but also stability. it is very hard to ratify an amendment. it is very easy to put an idea on the table in congress as the more than 11,000 show us, and only 27 have actually made it all the way to the final part of the process. so we wanted visitors, if anything, to walk away understanding while it is possible, the founding fathers made it difficult in terms of getting something added to the constitution. the second theme of our gallery is called refining powers, and all of the amendments that are in this section of the amendment reflect in some way amendments that either tried to give new powers

to the federal government or in some cases actually to take them away. so all of these -- all of these documents in this section have something to do with what powers the government is allowed to exercise. the first one over here is from 1938, which is after world war i and during the great depression but before world war ii actually started, but over in europe it looked already like there was going to be a war that many americans did not want to participate in. so this is actually a petition in favor of an amendment that had been introduced in congress that would take away a power from congress. article one, section eight of the constitution gives congress the power to declare war, and this proposed amendment would say that if congress did declare war that it could not go into

effect until after the -- that war resolution had been voted on in a national referendum. so that was definitely an attempt to try to get the people's voice in there. although they did get a lot of support for this here, they didn't have enough support to actually get that into the constitution. >> over here we have another perennial issue related to amending. the balanced budget amendment is one that has been introduced repeatedly in congress for probably about the last 40 years or so, it has been a regular event. we included this video here of ronald reagan's 1988 state of the union address because in it he talks about and advocates for the passage of a balanced budget amendment. >> this is the conference report, 1,053 pages, report

weighing 14 pounds. let us do now what so many states do to hold down spending and what 32 state legislatures have asked us to do, that is heed the wishes of an overwhelming plurality of americans and pass a constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget and forces the federal government to live within its means. another amendment that i came across in my research that i didn't know anything about until -- until researching for this exhibit is what's often referred to as the christian amendment, and this was a type of amendment that was first introduced in congress in about the 1840s and was introduced as recently as this one here which is from 1923. the idea behind this amendment is that it would amend the preamble of our constitution to place the primary authority for that document rather than in "we

the people," it would place the authority in -- this one says the law of jesus christ, the savior and the king of nations. sometimes in different time periods that wording actually shifted or sometimes it changed a little bit based on the denomination of the church writing in to support it. but the idea was that the constitution was not created as a christian document, so they wanted to amend the constitution in this way to ensure that it was. another story that surfaced in the 11,000 as we were researching them was the effort to -- actually five years after the repeal of prohibition attempt a version of prohibition. the 18th amendment banned the sale and manufacture of alcohol can, and the 21st amendment repealed that or negated the 18th amendment. that's the only time in our 27 where that happens. however, five years after that,

it was proposed in congress that instead of banning the sale and manufacture of alcohol, we would prohibit drunkenness and regulate human behavior in that way. the absurdity of this idea was cheekily pointed out in the handwritten note at the bottom, and i will read. it says, why not add section three, that period of time commonly known as saturday night is hereby striken from the c calendar of the united states and abolished. section for, shall have concurrent power to change human nature from time to time in its or their discretion can. this one did not go very far. i think at this point citizens realized prohibition had failed, not only for the sake of regulating behavior but also for very real issues as this cartoon explains. non-regulated manufacture of alcohol sometimes produced very harmful or poisonous liquor.

without government oversight bootlegging became a health issue as well. this document was amendment that was proposed in the house, and this is a formal submittal of that amendment. we have tried and tried to find out who wrote that. we don't know if it was a clerk or another legislator, we aren't sure, but it was added to it after the formal submittal of the document. the child labor amendment proposed by congress in 1924 was another one of the six amendments that was proposed by congress but was not ratified by the states. this letter right here shows the feelings that this one woman had, that she felt strongly enough about to write to her member of congress. she had seen some small children who were working and working so hard that they couldn't even play because they had no energy left after working. so she wrote this letter to her

member of congress to explain why she wanted to support regulation of child labor. but then she added this handwritten note at the bottom of it, that ties together two of the great amending issues of the progressive era at the beginning of the 20th century. and after she signed her name she wrote, one woman who wants the ballot for the purpose of helping these helpless little ones. so in doing so she showed how many of the amending issues are often tied together and occurring at the same time, in this case the move towards regulation of child labor was also tied very closely with getting women the right to vote so that they could help in those -- in those ways. this document here is a really interesting one that results to polygamy which was a big amending issue at the end of the 19th century when the state of utah, which is a significant

number of -- significant mormon population, the state of utah was trying to become a state, and many of those mormons did participate in polygamy, and there were other people throughout the country who did not want utah to become a state if they engaged in that activity. so there was -- there was a bunch of push-back against the effort to become a state. and in response to that this document was created and it says here, defense of pleural marriage by the women of utah county. they wrote this long document, we can actually only show one page here but it is about seven or eight pages long, in which they explain that polygamy is actually a divine directive and that they -- they will stand firm in their unalterable state in plural marriage as a divine ordinance. moving on to the next scene, which is called the shape of our government, the stories explore how the structure of our government really affects how it

works. a great example of that is our 25th amendment. as early as 1841, actually, william harrison was our first president to die in office, and the constitution indicates that the vice president would assume the role of presidency, however, the constitution is silent on pretty much everything else after that. so congress wasn't really sure what the vp, the vice president john tyler was to be called. was it president? was he acting president? what exactly did all of this mean? it is a question that lingered until the late half of the 20th century. it wasn't until john f. kennedy, president kennedy was assassinated and lyndon b. johnson stepped up to become president that enough support was galvanized to really answer this. over the course of that time from 1841 until the 25th amendment was ratified, if you combine the years where we had no vice president you would get

to 38 years that we had no vice president. so the 25th amendment was ratified, and thank goodness because it wasn't long after that we now have president nixon and vice president spiro ago new in office. spiro agnew resigns, and president nixon appoints a vice president. he ended up appointing gerald ford. just a year later president nixon resigned. now president ford using the 25th amendment to appoint his own vp. however, if the 25th amendment had not existed there would have been a huge political crisis on our hands. we would not have had somebody representing the presidency who was voted by a majority of the country, would have been someone voted by a small majority actually of a state. so the 25th amendment finally resolved a big question mark as the constitution did not quite answer at the time. this is a motion to amend the resolution to strike out

president and insert vice president now exercising the office of president. so this was what was submitted after william harrison, president harrison, died in office and vice president john taylor took office. this is a photo of lyndon b. johnson aboard air force one taking the oath of office to become president of the united states. and then here is a really interesting letter that talks -- or that delves more into the intricacies of what president nixon was doing where he asked gerald ford to recommend three people who he thought should be his vice president. so gerald ford does list -- he actually gives him four choices, which you can see here, and as we know president nixon ended up picking ford anyway. this petition to congress was sent in in 1868, right at the beginning of the impeachment trial of andrew johnson a few years after the end of the civil

war. that came when president johnson had many, many disagreements with the congress about how to reconstruct the country after the end of the civil war, and that disagreement led to a big rift in the country. johnson was so unpopular at the time that he not only was impeached, he did -- he was acquitted by one vote so he wasn't removed from office, but he was impeached and they people wrote in to congress to say that we should just abolish the presidency all together so that we wouldn't have to deal with anyone ever again the likes of andrew johnson. this document here has to do with a petition -- an amendment introduced by margaret -- senator margaret smith in 1971. her proposed amendment addressed what she saw as problems in the senate with people who were not reporting to work.

so she proposed an amendment to the constitution that would expel any member of congress who was absent for more than 40% of the roll call votes. and this was a petition sent in to the senate subcommittee on constitutional amendments to advocate in favor of that amendment. not surprisingly though, the other members of congress who might be expelled under this amendment did not vote for it and it did not pass. we decided to include this document here in the gallery because it shows how a specific event directly led to a constitutional amendment, in this case the 12th amendment. and it also shows that most people don't really know anything about the 12th amendment because it did such a good job of solving its targeted problems that we've never really needed to know anything else about it. it solved the problem and it

never happened again. you can see the problem pretty clearly when you look at this. this is the electoral college vote tally for the 1800 presidential election, and very quickly you see here that the vote in the election was a tie vote, 73-73, between the two candidates of the democrat, republican party, thomas jefferson of virginia and aaron burr of new york. the reason this happened in 1800 was because the candidates ran for this election differently than they had for any previous election. the electoral college system that the founders created when they wrote the constitution, they felt that it would work such that the candidates would all be running for president. whoever came in first place would become the president and whoever got the second place votes in the electoral college would become the vice president.

that worked fine when everybody voted for george washington in the first two elections and it worked okay for john adams in the next one after that. but in the 1800 presidential election, which was much more contested, it didn't work very well at all. the difference was that the candidates in this election ran for the first time as a party ticket. so thomas jefferson/aaron burr ran together as the presidential and vice presidential candidates. so when it came tie for the electoral college to vote, each election tore ge elector gets two votes. so they voted as such, one ballot for thomas jefferson and the other for his running mate aaron burr which resulted of course in a tie vote. the election wasn't resolved until after 36 ballots in the house of representatives which is where an election goes when no candidate gets a majority in the electoral college, that's what it says in the constitution.

so they realized after this election with this tie vote that that was going to continue to keep happening if candidates ran as a party ticket, then they would keep tying like that. so just in time for the next election in 1804 the 12th amendment to the constitution can was ratified, and it just tweaked the voting just a little bit in the electoral college so that each election tore hor hady which of their votes was for president and which was for vice president, and in doing so they assured there would not be a tie vote again and this would not happen, and that has worked. how the president is elected is probably one of the most common topics of proposed amendments to the constitution. this one right here is one that would simply abolish the electoral college system all speaks together and replace it with a direct vote. the next one over here takes a

much more interesting way of addressing that issue. clearly the electoral college can was not liked by most people. this proposed amendment, which was introduced in the house in 1846, would have gotten rid of the elect oral college but would have instead caused for us to choose the president of the united states by lot, by picking a ball out of an urn, a ball that represents a candidate, and that's who our president would be. so the person that introduced this amendment did not give a speech in congress, so we can't say with certainty what his goal was in doing this. but based on the research we were able to do about this member of congress can and about the time period, we think that this was a deliberate effort to randomize the presidency in a time period right before the civil war when the nation was breaking up into sections, those

that favored slavery and those that favored abolition or freedom for all. and if the president of the united states was randomly picked, then neither the slave states nor the free states could say that they won and say that there was support for their agenda. so if we had chosen the president this way in 1846, perhaps the civil war would not have happened, at least not when it did. it may have delayed it. here in the gallery though we also decided to take a little bit longer look at the sort of absurdity behind this idea of selecting a president by picking a ball out of a bowl, and we asked what would happen if we, in fact, elected the president of the united states by lot today. so we made not quite an urn but good enough, we made a little container here and we have the balls in it marked by the

states. and when -- what we did was we asked -- we worked with google to find the most googled person from each state, and we used that as our stand-in for who might be the most popular person, who might be president of the united states if we picked a ball out of a bowl to choose can our president. the national archives plays a role in the amending process as well, and we show that through this document right over here. after an amendment has been proposed by two-thirds vote of both houses and then also ratified by three-quarters of the state, those ratification documents get sent to the national archives and the archivist of the united states certifieds it has concluded the amending process and certifies the amendment is now part of the

constitution. so this is the certification document of the 27th and most recent amendment to the constitution, which was ratified in 1992. we have a photograph right here as well of the archivist of the united states, don wilson, signing that ratification document. in addition to the certification, all of the -- all of the state ratifications of amen amendments are stored here at the national archives and all kinds of federal records that show how the amendment came to be and how it was implemented afterwards. all of those are federal records that are stored here at the national archives. and for a final interaction that visitors can choose to participate in, we have created a poll where we're asking visitors to submit their own vote on what could be our next amendment. we have 27 amendments to the

constitution currently, and congress every day is proposing new ones. so we have put a multiple choice selection of answers for visitors to simply text their opinion to the poll, and it is a real-time poll so visitors will get to see their vote be added to the results. we also included an animated video in our exhibit to explain the process of how an idea becomes an amendment. this is a cute little animation we created in partnership with the history channel that explains the two-part process of congress proposing an amendment and then states ratifying it. this video is available on youtube for anybody to see and use as well. >> so how exactly does the constitution get amended? >> when an idea has enough

popular support -- >> women ought to have the right to vote! >> -- for enough time. >> women still ought to have the right to vote! >> a member of congress brings it to the floor of house or senate. it is assigned a committee for debate and refinement. if it makes it out of commitment, the full chamber debates. and if two-thirds of members vote for it, it passes. >> then it becomes an amendment? >> nope, now it goes to the other chamber and repeats the process. >> any differences are worked out in a conference committee, and then each chamber votes again. >> oh, brother. ♪ or sister >> if it passes congress, the national archives sends cop canniys to each state. if three-fourths of the states

send back ratification, the archivist of the united states certifies and it is amended. >> you can more about the exhibit by visit archives.gov. or download a free e book companion to the exhibit. this week on c-span in prime time. tuesday night at 8:00, president obama and japanese prime minister abe visit the naval base at pearl harbor. he is the first sitting japanese leader to visit the site of the attack that launched u.s. involvement in word war ii. wednesday night beginning at 8:00, a review of hearings on 2016, including flint, michigan water crisis and the wells fargo

unauthorized account scandal. >> seriously, you found out one of your divisions created two million fake accounts, had fired thousands of employees for improper behavior, and had cheated thousands of your own customers and you didn't even once consider firing her ahead of her retirement? >> thursday at 8:00 p.m. eastern we remember some of the political figures that passed away in 2016, including former first lady nancy reagan, and supreme court justice antonin scalia. friday night at 8:00 our in mem or yam program continues with shimon perez, muhammad ali. >> in depth will feature a live discussion on the president of barack obama. we're taking your live phone calls, tweets and facebook questions during the program. the program includes april ryan,

and author of the presidency in black and white, my up close view of three presidents and race in american. princeton university professor eddie glaude, how race still enslaves the american soul. david maranies, author of barack obama, the story. watch in depth live from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern on sunday on book tv on c-span2. next on american history tv, historian andrew roberts talks about the sensitive side of former british prime minister winston churchill. mr. roberts has written several books on churchill and the second world war and spoke recently at the 33rd international churchill conference at the mayflower hotel in washington d.c. this is about 45 minutes. thank you, david. very much