have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

SECT. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ART. XIV. SECT. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

SECT. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States, representatives in congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

SECT. 3. No person shall be a senator, or representative in congress, or elector of president and vice-president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

SECT. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

But neither the United States, nor any state, shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

SECT. 5. The congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

ART. XV. SECT. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

SECT. 2. The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation..

[NOTE. The constitution was adopted September 17, 1787, by the unanimous consent of the states present in the convention appointed in pursuance of the resolution of the congress of the confederation of February 21, 1787, and was ratified by the conventions of the several states, as follows, viz.: By convention of Delaware, December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787; New Jersey, December 18, 1787; Georgia, January 2, 1788; Connecticut, January 9, 1788; Massachusetts, February 6, 1788; Maryland, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 26, 1788; New York, July 26, 1788; North Carolina, November 21, 1789; Rhode Island, May 29, 1790.

The first ten of the amendments were proposed at the first session of the first congress of the United States, September 25, 1789, and were finally ratified by the constitutional number of states on December 15, 1791. The eleventh amendment was proposed at the first session of the third congress, March 5, 1794, and was declared, in a message from the President of the United States to both houses of congress, dated January 8, 1798, to have been adopted by the constitutional number of states. The twelfth amendment was proposed at the first session of the eighth congress, December 12, 1803, and was adopted by the constitutional number of states in 1804, according to a public notice thereof by the secretary of state, dated September 25 of the same year.

The thirteenth amendment was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the thirty-eighth congress on February 1, 1865, and was declared, in a proclamation of the secretary of state, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of threefourths of the states.

The fourteenth amendment was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the thirty-ninth congress, on June 16, 1866.

On July 20, 1868, the secretary of state of the United States issued his certificate, setting out that it appeared by official documents on file in the department of state that said amendment had been ratified by the legislatures of the states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Iowa, and by newly established bodies avowing themselves to be and acting as the legislatures of the states of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama; that the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey had since passed resolutions withdrawing the consent of those states to said amendment; that the whole number of states in the United States was thirty-seven, that the twenty-three states first above named and the six states next above named together, constituted three-fourths of the whole number of states, and certifying that if the resolutions of Ohio and New Jersey, ratifying said amendment, were still in force, notwithstanding their subsequent resolutions, then said amendment had been ratified and so become valid as part of the constitution.

On July 21, 1868, congress passed a resolution reciting that the amendment had been ratified by Connecticut, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Maine, Iowa, Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana, being three-fourths of the several states of the Union, and declaring said fourteenth article to be a part of the constitution of the United States, and making it the duty of the secretary of state to duly promulgate it as such.

On July 28, 1868, the secretary of state issued his certificate, reciting the above resolution, and stating that official notice had been received at the department of state that action had been taken by the legis latures of the states in relation to said amendment, as follows:. "It was ratified in A.D. 1866, by Connecticut, June 30; New Hampshire, July 7; Tennessee, July 19; Oregon, September 19; Vermont, November 9. In A.D. 1867, by New York, January 10; Illinois, January 15; West Virginia, January 16; Kansas, January 18; Maine, January 19; Nevada, January 22; Missouri, January 26; Indiana, January 29; Minnesota, February 1; Rhode Island, February 7; Wisconsin; February 13; Pennsylvania, February 13; Michigan, February 15; Massachusetts, March 20; Nebraska, June 15. In A.D. 1868, by Iowa,

April 3; Arkansas, April 6; Florida, June 9; Louisiana, July 9; and Alabama, July 13.

"It was first ratified and the ratification subsequently withdrawn by New Jersey, ratified September 11, 1866, withdrawn April, 1868; Ohio, ratified January 11, 1867, and withdrawn January, 1868.

"It was first rejected and then ratified by Georgia, rejected November 13, 1866, ratified July 21, 1868; North Carolina, rejected December 4, 1866, ratified July 4, 1868; South Carolina, rejected December 20, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868.

"It was rejected by Texas, November 1, 1866; Virginia, January 9, 1867; Kentucky, January 10, 1867; Delaware, February 7, 1867; and Maryland, March 23, 1867."

And on said July 28, 1868, and in execution of the act proposing the amendment and of the concurrent resolution of congress above mentioned and in pursuance thereof, the secretary of state directed that said amendment to the constitution be published in the newspapers authorized to promulgate the laws of the United States, and certified that it had been adopted in the manner above specified by the states named in said resolution, and that it "has become valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the constitution of the United States."

Subsequently it was ratified by Virginia, October 8, 1869, by Georgia, again, February 2, 1870, and by Texas, February 18, 1870.

The fifteenth amendment was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the fortieth congress on February 27, 1869, and was declared, in a proclamation of the secretary of state, dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the constitutional number of states and to have "become valid to all intents and purposes as part of the constitution of the United States."]