Constitution of the State of California and Summary of Amendments ...

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.

Disqualification for public office.

SEC. 3. 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 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.

Public debt, guarantee of.

SEC. 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.

Power of Congress.

SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. [Declared ratified July 28, 1868. (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 15, pp. 709-711)]

ARTICLE XV.

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE.

Right of citizens to vote.

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.

Power of Congress.

SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. [U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 15, p. 346]

ARTICLE XVI.

Income tax-Congress given power to lay and collect.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [Proposed July 12, 1909; in effect February 25, 1913]

NOTE. A further amendment provides for the election of senators by the people. See Art. I, Sec 3, p. 307. The joint resolution by which the Congress of the United States, at the second session, sixty-second Congress, in the year one thousand nine hundred and twelve, proposed the amendment was in the following words:

"Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two thirds of each House concurring therein), that in lieu of the first paragraph of section three of Article I of the Constitution of the United States, and in lieu of so much of paragraph two of the same section as relates to the filling of vacancies, the following be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the States: ""The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures.

"When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies; provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

""This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.'"