Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified
July 9, 1868.
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
(modified by Amendment
26).
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.
Article I, section 2, of the Constitution
was modified by this section 2.
