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amendment

(Encyclopedia)amendment, in law, alteration of the provisions of a legal document. The term usually refers to the alteration of a statute or a constitution, but it is also applied in parliamentary law to proposed c...

Fourteenth Amendment

(Encyclopedia)Fourteenth Amendment, addition to the U.S. Constitution, adopted 1868. The amendment comprises five sections. Section 2 provides for apportionment of membership in the House of Representatives on th...

Platt Amendment

(Encyclopedia)Platt Amendment: see Platt, Orville Hitchcock. ...

Equal Rights Amendment

(Encyclopedia)Equal Rights Amendment: see civil rights; feminism. ...

Slaughterhouse Cases

(Encyclopedia)Slaughterhouse Cases, cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873. In 1869 the Louisiana legislature granted a 25-year monopoly to a slaughterhouse concern in New Orleans for the stated purpose of...

Constitution of the United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Constitution of the United States, document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787...

Paul, Alice

(Encyclopedia)Paul, Alice, 1885–1977, American feminist, b. Moorestown, N.J. She helped found the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (1913), which became the National Woman's party (1917). After the passage o...

term limits

(Encyclopedia)term limits, statutory limitations placed on the number of terms officeholders may serve. Focusing especially on members of the U.S. Congress, term limits became an important national political issue ...

Volstead, Andrew Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Volstead, Andrew Joseph vŏlˈstĕd [key], 1860–1947, American legislator, b. Goodhue co., Minn. A lawyer, he held several local offices in Minnesota before serving (1903–23) in the U.S. House of ...

Wilmot Proviso

(Encyclopedia)Wilmot Proviso, 1846, amendment to a bill put before the U.S. House of Representatives during the Mexican War; it provided an appropriation of $2 million to enable President Polk to negotiate a territ...