The United States Constitution
Amendment XIV
Ratified 7/9/1868
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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