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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 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 power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article.
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