Amendment XIV
571
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 power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This second Civil War or Reconstruction Amendment accounts for more
than half of all cases heard in the Supreme Court nowadays.
Divided into five parts, the Fourteenth Amendment’s first section confers State and Federal citizenship on all persons born or naturalized in
the United States, irrespective of race. It overturns the Dred Scott Case,
which had held that blacks were