 14th
Amendment | Bill of Rights
Citizenship
Rights
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. |
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