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THE THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH
AND FIFTEENTH AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
ARTICLE XIII.
Section 1. Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall
have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XIV.
Section 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.
Section 2. Representatives
shall be apportioned among the several States according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons of 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.
Section 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.
Section 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.
Section 5. The Congress
shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of
this article.
ARTICLE XV.
Section 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.
Section 2. The Congress
shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. |
