The Fourteenth Amendment
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.