SECTION 3.
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. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.
[Footnote: Section 3. What persons are prohibited from holding any office under the United States? How may this disability be removed?]
SECTION 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pension 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.
[Footnote: Section 4. Repeat the provision with regard to the validity of the public debt. With regard to any debt incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion.]
SECTION 5. Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
ARTICLE XV
SECTION 1. The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
ARTICLE XV (Note—This amendment was adopted in 1870. See p. 288) Repeat the amendment granting universal suffrage.