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.