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 VicePresident 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."

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."

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."

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

Article XV.-Right of Suffrage.

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.”

2. "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."*

"The Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one" (CHIEF-JUSTICE WAITE). An amendment was necessary to prevent the States or the United States from giving preference, in the right to vote, to one citizen of the United States over another on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. "The Fifteenth Amendment had the effect in law of removing from the State constitutions, or making void, any provision in them which restricted the right to vote to the white race "(JUSTICE HARLAN). By the second section Congress is expressly empowered to enforce the amendment. It was proposed by Congress Feb. 26, 1869, and proclaimed in force March 30, 1870. This amendment illustrates the liberal character of the Government of the people of the United States, and a striking contrast may now be drawn between the narrow and somewhat selfish principles of the Federal Government in 1789, and the broad and humane principles which actuate the nation at the present time.

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION BY PRES

IDENT LINCOLN, JANUARY 1, 1863.*

WHEREAS, On the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing among other things the following, to wit: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixtythree, all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of the state, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and for ever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons or any of them in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom; that the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states, and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at

* The tendency of the Government of the people of the United States toward liberal sentiments and the general welfare of man is shown by the legislation, considered as a whole, of Congress and of the States, but by no act more conspicuously than by the abolition of slavery in the United States. Slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but preliminary to the amendment was the Emancipation Proclamation, written and issued by President Lincoln. His proclamation may be considered as the second Magna Charta in the history of our race. It transformed the people of the United States into a nation of peers.