The New Constitutional Amendment

The proposed amendment is to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. It will guarantee citizenship for blacks, and enfranchise all males 21 and older, except those previously involved with the Confederacy.

The following is the proposed amendment as it passed the Senate yesterday : 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 part of the Constitution, namely : ArticleSection 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States 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. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number ol persons, excluding Indians not taxed. Rut whenever the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President, Representatives in Congress, executive and judicial officers, or members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State being twenty-one years of ago, 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 twentyone years of age in such State. Section 3. That 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 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 a 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. Section 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. Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of tnis section.

“The New Constitutional Amendment,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/209.