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.