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or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

SECTION III.

1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned, as well as of the Congress.

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

SECTION IV.

1. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union, a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V.

1. The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution; or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress: Provided, That no amendment, which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses of the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI.

1. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this constitution, shall be as valid against the United States, under this constitution, as under the confederation.

2. This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby; anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

ARTICLE VII.

1. The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the States so ratifying the same.

Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names.

GEO. WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT, and Deputy from Virginia.

New Hampshire:

John Langdon,

Nicholas Gilman.
Connecticut :

Wm. Samuel Johnson,
Roger Sherman.

John Dickinson,
Richard Bassett,
Jacob Brcom.
Massachusetts:

Nathaniel Gorham,
Rufus King.

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Maryland:

James M'Henry,

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer,

Daniel Carroll.

Virginia:

John Blair,

James Madison, Jr.
North Carolina:
William Blount,

Richard Dobbs Spaight,
Hugh Williamson.
South Carolina:
John Rutledge,

C. Cotesworth Pinckney,
Charles Pinckney,

Pierce Butler.

Georgia:

William Few,

Abraham Baldwin.

WILLIAM JACKSON, Secretary.

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION.

ARTICLE I.

1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances.

ARTICLE II.

1. A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

ARTICLE III.

1. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

ARTICLE IV.

1. The right of the people to be secure in their persous, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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