SECTION I.—"CITIZEN" DEFINED. PRIVILEGES GUARANTEED.
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.[1] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall 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]
[1] This provision defines citizenship. It was worded with the special view of including the negroes. It embodies the principle of the Civil Rights Bill, and is intended to guarantee to the negroes the protection implied in citizenship.
[2] Some of the amendments impose limitations only on the general government. Lest the states in which slavery had recently been abolished should endeavor to oppress the ex-slaves this provision was made as a limitation upon the states.
But this provision is general in it nature, and by means of it the United States can protect individuals against oppression on the part of the states. Pomeroy [Footnote: Constitutional Law, p. 151.] regards this as the most important amendment except the thirteenth.
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.
SECTION III.—DISABILITIES of REBELS.
No person shall be a senator or representative in congress, or elector of president or 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.[1] But congress may, by a two-thirds vote of each house, remove such disability.[2]