risdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

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.

S. 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.

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.

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate
legislation, the provisions of this article. ARTICLE XV. [23]

[Footnote 23: Proposed by Congress Feb. 26, 1869, and declared in force
March 30, 1870.]

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, colour, or previous condition of servitude.

2. The Congress shall have power to