To all to whom these presents may come, greeting:
Know ye that the Congress of the United States, on or about the 27th day of February, in the year 1869, passed a resolution in the words and figures following, to wit:
A RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of both Houses concurring), That the following article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures, shall be valid as a part of the Constitution, viz;
ARTICLE XV.
Section 1. The right 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.
SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And further, that it appears from official documents on file in this Department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the legislatures of the States of North Carolina, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Maine, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, New Hampshire, Nevada, Vermont, Virginia, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Nebraska, and Texas; in all, twenty-nine States;
And further, that the States whose legislatures have so ratified the said proposed amendment constitute three-fourths of the whole number of States in the United States;