llowing
amendment to the Constitution:

"ARTICLE--.

"SEC. 1. "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.

"SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States which may be included within this Union
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole
number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not
taxed. But whenever in any State the elective franchise
shall be denied to any portion of its male citizens not less
than twenty-one years of age, or in any way abridged, except
for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of
representation in such State shall be reduced in the
proportion which the number of male citizens shall bear to
the whole number of such male citizens not less than
twenty-one years of age.

"SEC. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all
persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection,
giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right
to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for
President and Vice-President of the United States.

"SEC. 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall
assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or
which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or
of war against the United States, or any claim for
compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.

"SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two
bills, one of which provided that when any State lately in
insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and
Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should be
admitted as members of Congress. The other bill declared the high
ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under
the Government of the United States.

The proposed constitutional amendment was by a vote of the House made
the special order for Tuesday, the 8th of May. On that day Mr. Stevens
occupied the attention of th