Article XIV.
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,(See Note 15) 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.
Rewrite Amendment in your own words
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Discussion Questions:
Why was it necessary to spell
out in this amendment that people had the rights of citizenship in their
states as well as the whole United States?
