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.

Apportionment of Representatives.

SEC. 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.

Disqualification for public office.

SEC. 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.

Public debt, guarantee of.

SEC. 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.

Power of Congress.

SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.-[Proposed June 16, 1866; in effect July 28, 1868.]

ARTICLE XV.

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

Right of citizens to vote.

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.

Power of Congress.

SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.-[Proposed February 27, 1869; in effect March 30, 1870.]

HISTORY OF THE AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF

THE UNITED STATES.

Twelve amendments were proposed by the First Congress, on the 25th day of September, 1789. The last ten were adopted, and they are the first ten as given herein. They went into effect December 15, 1791, the day upon which Congress received notice that they had been ratified by Virginia, the eleventh State to take such action, making the necessary three fourths. There were then fourteen States in the Union.

The rejected Articles were as follows:

I. After the first enumeration required by the First Article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every 30,000 persons, until the number shall amount to one hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than one hundred Representatives nor more than one for every 40,000 persons, until the number shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every 50,000 persons.

II. No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

The twelve proposed amendments were acted upon as follows: All ratified by Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia-6.

All excepting Article I ratified by Delaware-1.

All excepting Article II ratified by Pennsylvania—1.

All excepting Articles I and II ratified by New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island-3.

All rejected by Connecticut, Georgia, and Massachusetts-3. Notification of the ratification of the ten amendments by the Legislatures of the several States was forwarded by the Governors thereof to the President of the United States, and by him communicated to Congress in the following order:

New Jersey, November 20, 1789; Maryland, December 19, 1789; North Carolina, December 22, 1789; South Carolina, January 19, 1790; New Hampshire, January 25, 1790; Delaware, January 28, 1790; Pennsylvania, March 10, 1790; New York, March 27, 1790; Rhode Island, June 15, 1790; Vermont, November 3, 1791; Virginia, December 15, 1791.

Article XI was proposed by the Third Congress on the 5th of September, 1794, and declared in force January 8, 1798, by a message of the President to Congress proclaiming that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States.

Article XII was proposed in the first session of the Eighth Congress, on the 12th of December, 1803, and declared in force by a proclamation of the Secretary of State of date September 25, 1804, stating that it had been ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States.

Article XIII was proposed by the Thirty-eighth Congress February 1, 1865, and declared in force December 18, 1865, in the following proclamation by the Secretary of State (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 13, page 775):

** * * WHEREAS, It appears from official documents on file in this department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the legislatures of the states of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia; in all twenty-seven states; AND WHEREAS, The whole number of states in the United States is thirty-six;

AND WHEREAS, The before specially named states, whose legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment, constitute three fourths of the whole number of states in the United States:

Now, THEREFORE, be it known, that I, William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the Act of Congress, approved the twentieth of April, eighteen hundred and eighteen, entitled "An Act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the Department of the State to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this eighteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the ninetieth.

[L. S.]

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
Secretary of State.

Summary.-Number of states in Union, 36. Number of states ratifying at date of promulgation, 27.

Subsequently the amendment was ratified by the following states: California (December 20, 1865, Statutes of California 1865, page 896), Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oregon, and Texas-7.

Rejected by Delaware and Kentucky-2.

Article XIV was proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress June 16, 1866. Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, issued two promulgations of this amendment-the first being dated July 20, 1868 (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 15, page 706), and reads as follows:

* * * WHEREAS, By the second section of the Act of Congress, approved the twentieth of April, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen, entitled "An Act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States, and for other purposes," it is made the duty of the Secretary of State forthwith to cause any amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which has been adopted according to the provisions of the said Constitution, to be published in the newspapers authorized to promulgate the laws, with his certificate specifying the states by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States;

AND WHEREAS, Neither the Act just quoted from, nor any other law, expressly or by conclusive implication, authorizes the Secretary of State to determine and decide doubtful questions as to the authenticity of the organization of state legislatures, or as to the power of any state legislature to recall a previous act or resolution of ratification of any amendment proposed to the Constitution;

AND WHEREAS, It appears from official documents on file in this department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has 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 WHEREAS, It further appears from documents on file in this department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has also been ratified by newly constituted and newly established bodies avowing themselves to be and acting as the legislatures, respectively, of the states of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama;

AND WHEREAS, It further appears from official documents on file in this department that the legislatures of two of the states first above enumerated, to wit: Ohio and New Jersey, have since passed resolutions, respectively, withdrawing the consent of each