s of this article."

Article XV.--Right of Suffrage.

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."

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

[1]The Articles of Confederation proved by experience inadequate to the
wants of the people of the United States, and they were supplanted by
the Constitution.

"The American Constitution, with its manifest defects, still remains
one of the most abiding monuments of human wisdom, and it has received
a tribute to its general excellence such as no other political system
was ever honored with."--FREEMAN.

[2]This clause has been superseded by Amendment XIV., Sect. 2.

[3]This clause has been amended and superseded by the Twelfth Amendment
to the Constitution. By the provisions of the original clause the
person in the electoral college having the greatest number of votes
(provided he had a majority of the whole number of electors appointed)
became President, and the person having the next greatest number of
votes became Vice-president, thus giving the Presidency to one
political party and the Vice-Presidency to another. In the year 1800
the Democratic Republicans determined to elect Thomas Jefferson
President and Aaron Burr Vice-president. The result was that each
secured an equal number of votes, and neither was elected. The
Constitution then, as now, provided that in case the electoral college
failed to elect a President, the House of Representatives, voting as
States, should elect. The Federalists distrusted and disliked
Jefferson; the Democratic Republicans and some of the Federalists
distrusted and disliked Burr. The vote in the House on the
thirty-sixth ballot gave the Presidency to Jefferson and the
Vice-Presidency to Burr. In order to prevent a repetition of so
dangerous a struggle, the Twelfth Amendment, by which the electoral
votes are cast separately for the candidates for President and for
Vice-President, was proposed by Congress Dec. 12, 1803, and declared in
force Sept. 25, 1804.

[4]More than seven hundred amendments to the Constitution have been
proposed since it was adopted. Several are usually proposed at each
session of Congress.

The first twelve articles of amendment to the Federal Constitution were
adopted so soon after the original organization of t