U.S. Constitution – Amendment 14 – The U.S. Constitution Online – USConstitution.net

Apr 23, 2024

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U.S. Constitution – Amendment 14

Amendment 14 – Citizenship Rights

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.

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.

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.

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.

Notes for this amendment:
Proposed 6/13/1866
Ratified 7/9/1868
Note
History
Article 1, Section 2

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