CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AMENDMENT XIV
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868
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.
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.