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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 to 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 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.
* Modified by Amendment 26
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 the power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.