SECTION II.—BASIS of REPRESENTATION.
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.
Each state determines who may vote within its borders. This provision was intended as an inducement to the former slave states to grant franchise to the colored men. It does not compel them to do this. But granting the franchise increases their representation. The fifteenth amendment is more imperative in this direction.