her
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."

"ARTICLE XV.

"SECTION 1.--The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by, the United States or by any State on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

"SECTION 2.--The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation."

It would seem, then, from the provisions of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth,
and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, and the Congressional
legislation subsequently enacted for the purpose of enforcing them, that
not only the absolute personal Freedom of every man, woman, and child in
the United States was thus irrevocably decreed; that United States
citizenship was clearly defined; that the life, liberty, property,
privileges and immunities of all were secured by throwing around them
the "equal protection of the laws;" that the right of the United States
citizen to vote, was placed beyond denial or abridgment, on