number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the VicePresident, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

ARTICLE XIII.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE XIV.

SECTION 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 State 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 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.

SECTION 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.

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 this article.

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.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

CHAPTER IV.

COMMENTS UPON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

SECTION I

WHAT OUR CONSTITUTION IS.

From the day the constitution was adopted to this time, the question, what that constitution is, has divided men's minds. At sundry times debated and discussed with earnestness, and arraying different political parties against each other, at length the antagonism which had been growing for generations was intensified into open hostility, and the late war broke forth. Slavery made the political question a local question. But those who seceded from the Union regarded the antislavery movement only as the occasion for exercising their right of secession. Some went so far as to maintain that each State had a right to secede whenever it chose to, and for no other reason than its will and pleasure. But generally they rested their secession upon the principle that the constitution is a compact between the States; that each of the parties has the right of judging whether that compact be violated; and that any party deeming it violated has a right to leave or secede from the Union formed by the compact.

It is to the last degree unjust and unwise in those who stand on either side of this great question to accuse those who stand on the other side, of holding views which are wholly and obviously unreasonable, and are induced only by personal, local, and selfish interests. On the contrary, the question is one of great and inherent difficulty, and from the foundation of the government has divided able and honest men.

One of the forms of this question is this: Is the Constitution of the United States a compact? The answer I should give is: Yes, it is a compact; but it is also much more than a compact.

The question may then be asked, Supposing it to be a compact, is it a social or a federal compact? In other words, is it a compact between all the members of this political society, meaning thereby all the individuals who collectively make up the people, each one entering into covenant with all the rest; or is it a compact between the several States who come together in a federal league?

Here my answer would be, it is both; neither exclusively, but both reconciled into unity.

It is, in the first place, a compact between the States. The very name of this nation, "The United States," indicates this. The States, while still colonies, first met by delegates to think of, and, if they could, provide for, confederation. The States, then, met by delegates, and prepared and submitted to the people the Articles of Confederation. When it became apparent that these were insufficient and unsatisfactory, the States came together by delegates in a convention, which prepared this constitution, and returned it to the States. It was provided that it should go into force, not when such a number or proportion of the people should approve of and accept it, but when it should be ratified by the conventions of nine of the States. So, too, the constitution itself constantly preserves the distinction between the States, as in choosing the President and the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, and continually refers to the States elsewhere.

On the other hand, the constitution itself, as decidedly declares that it is made by the people. "We THE PEOPLE of the United States, .. do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." It is made for the States; but it is the people who make it.

The States met in convention to frame it; but they met by delegates appointed by the people. And when it was framed and remitted for approval and adoption to the States, it was sent there, not to be ratified by their executive or legislative bodies, but by conventions of delegates to be chosen by the people expressly to take this matter into consideration.

These considerations, on the one side and the other, rest perhaps too much upon mere verbal construction. There are those of greater weight which we may invoke to help us answer this question. No precedents in human history can give us much assistance. The work which our fathers had to do was a new work. Leagues and confederacies had been made before, but never under such circumstances or for such a purpose; and the work they did must be judged of by itself.

The very first principle which came forth from the circumstances and doings of the time is, that when men come together to accomplish any great purpose, the will of the majority must govern. Henceforward this great principle must stand forth among human transactions, and wield a force which it never possessed before. There had been forms of government which called themselves republican. But this great word bore a very different meaning formerly from that which it bears now. Our fathers had achieved

their independence. They had all been subjects of a personal sovereign. When they cast off this sovereignty, they had no master; nor were any of them masters over the rest. They came together as political equals: all free, and all equally free. It followed, of necessity, that the will of the majority must govern. Everybody felt, everybody saw, that if the majority did not govern, nothing could govern; and if there were no government, there could be no social order, no organized community.

Under their charters, the people of the different colonies had voted on many important matters, and determined them by a majority. When the colonies became States, this became, of necessity, the universal rule. Within each State no other method was thought of. The machinery of counties and townships was still made use of, because they were accustomed to it, and it was the most convenient way of ascertaining the will of the majority. So when the question came, Shall we form a Union, shall we become a nation, and how shall we become a nation, and what shall it be?—all these questions were answered by a convention of delegates, chosen in the several States by a majority vote. That convention framed a constitution for the people; and the people in the States, and through State organizations, accepted it. This was done in conventions of delegates chosen by majority votes, and the constitution was ratified in these conventions by a majority vote.

And what did the people do? "We the people of the United States... ordain and establish this constitution." Surely words of such emphatic meaning were not chosen by accident or without design. They tell us that the constitution is a supreme, a fixed, and abiding law; ordained and established, so that it might make of the people, from whose will it was born, a nation, -a permanent and abiding nation. This it could not be and do if the very existence of the constitution and of the Union itself were made dependent upon the will and pleasure of any portion of the people who framed it. No portion of the people, whether under the name and form of a State, or county, or township, or by any other designation, could annul it. True to its fundamental principle, the will of the majority, and knowing that the will of the majority may change either from change of circumstances or the teaching of experience, it provides the means of change, which will be considered presently. But unless and until changed in accordance with these provisions, the constitution remains, the fixed and abiding, the ordained and established, framework of our political and national existence.

The principle which underlies the Constitution of the United States, and every State constitution, and upon which all are founded, is this, the utmost liberty is given to the individual, and yet he,