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. ARTICLES IN ADDITION TO, AND AMENDMENT OF, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, PROPOSED BY CONGRESS, BUT NOT RATIFIED BY THE LEGISLATURES OF THE SEVERAL STATES, PURSUANT TO THE FIFTH ARTICLE OF THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION. PROPOSED BY THE FIRST CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, MARCH 4, 1789.t ARTICLE I. After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which, the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons. ART. II. No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened. PROPOSED BY THE ELEVENTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, NOVEMBER 27, 1809. If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honor, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them. PROPOSED BY THE THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION, MARCH 2, 1861. ARTICLE XIII. No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State. *The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several States by the Fortieth Congress, on the 26th of February, 1869, and was declared, in a proclamation of the Secretary of State dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven States. The dates of these ratifications (arranged in the order of their reception at the Department of State) were: from North Carolina, March 5, 1869; West Virginia, March 3, 1869; Massachusetts, March 9-12, 1869; Wisconsin, March 9, 1869; Maine, March 12, 1869; Louisiana, March 5, 1869; Michigan, March 8, 1869; South Carolina, March 16, 1869; Pennsylvania, March 26, 1869; Arkansas, March 30, 1869; Connecticut, May 19, 1869; Florida, June 15, 1869; Illinois, March 5, 1869; Indiana, May 13-14, 1869; New York, March 17-April 14, 1869, (and the legislature of the same State passed a resolution January 5, 1870, to withdraw its consent to it;) New Hampshire, July 7, 1869; Nevada, March 1, 1869; Vermont, October 21, 1869; Virginia, October 8, 1869; Missouri, January 10, 1870; Mississippi, January 15-17, 1870; Ohio, January 27, 1870; Iowa, February 3, 1870; Kansas, January 18-19, 1870; Minnesota, February 19, 1870; Rhode Island, January 18, 1870; Nebraska, February 17, 1870; Texas, February 18, 1870. The State of Georgia also ratified the amendment February 2, 1870. Ten amendments which followed these, and were proposed by Congress to the Legislatures of the States, were ratified, and became the ten first articles of amendment to the Constitution. ALABAMA.* PROPRIETARY CHARTER OF CAROLINA—1663. PROPRIETARY CHARTER OF GEORGIA-1732. CONSTITUTION OF GEORGIA-1777. THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OF MISSISSIPPI-1798. [See "Mississippi," pages 1049, 1050.] THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT OF ALABAMA-1817.† [FOURTEENTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.] An act to establish a separate Territorial Government for the eastern part of the Mississippi Territory. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all that part of the Mississippi Territory which lies within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning at the point where the line of the thirtyfirst degree of north latitude intersects the Perdido River, thence east to the western boundary-line of the State of Georgia, thence along said line to the southern boundaryline to the State of Tennessee, thence west along said boundary-line to the Tennessee River, thence up the same to the mouth of Bear Creek, thence by a direct line to the *The area of the State of Alabama was ceded to the United States by the States of Georgia and South Carolina, and by Spain. A strip of land twelve miles wide, across the northern part of the State, and adjoining the southern boundary of the State of Tennessee, ceded by the State of South Carolina, was a portion of the Territory South of the river Ohio, afterward transferred to the Mississippi Territory. The larger portion of the State, ceded by the State of Georgia, was a portion of the Mississippi Territory. The southwestern corner of the State, between the Perdido River and the State of Mississippi, and between the thirty-first parallel and the Gulf of Mexico, ceded by Spain, became a portion of the Mississippi Territory. t'This act was amended by an act approved April 20, 1818. northwest corner of Washington County, thence due south to the Gulf of Mexico, thence eastwardly, including all the islands within six leagues of the shore, to the Perdido River, and thence up the same to the beginning; shall, for the purpose of a temporary government, constitute a separate Territory, and be called "Alabama." SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That all offices which may exist, and all laws which may be in force, in said Territory, within the boundaries above described, at the time this act shall go into effect, shall continue to exist, and be in force, until otherwise provided by law. And the President of the United States shall have power to appoint a governor and secretary for the said Alabama Territory, who shall, respectively, exercise the same power, perform the same duties, and receive for their services the same compensation, as are provided for the governor and secretary of the Mississippi Territory: Provided, That the appointment of said governor and secretary shall be submitted to the Senate, for their advice and consent, at the next session of Congress. SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That there shall be appointed an additional judge of the Mississippi Territory, who shall reside in the eastern part thereof, and receive the same compensation as the other judges; and that the judge appointed by virtue of an act, passed the twenty-seventh day of March, one thousand eight hundred and four, for the appointment of an additional judge for the Mississippi Territory, together with the judge appointed for Madison County, and the judge to be appointed by virtue of this act, shall possess and exercise exclusive original jurisdiction in the superior courts of Washington, Baldwin, Clarke, Monroe, Montgomery, Wayne, Greene, Jackson, Mobile, Madison, and of such new counties as may be formed out of them, and shall arrange the same among themselves, from time to time: Provided, That no judge shall sit more than twice in succession in the same court, and that the other judges of the Mississippi Territory shall exercise, as heretofore authorized by an act of Congress, or of the territorial legislature, exclusive jurisdiction in the superior courts of the other counties. That a general court, to be composed of the judge appointed by virtue of the act of twenty-seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred and four, the judge appointed for Madison County, and the judge to be appointed by virtue of this act, or any two of them, shall be holden at Saint Stephens, commencing on the first Mondays of January and July, annually, who shall have the same power of issuing writs of error to the superior courts of the counties mentioned in this section, or which shall hereafter be formed in the eastern division of the Territory, which was given by the act for the appointment of an additional judge, passed the year one thousand eight hundred and four, to the superior court of Adams district, and which shall possess, exclusively of the courts of the several counties, the Federal jurisdiction given to the superior courts of the Territories, by an act passed the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and five, entitled "An act to extend jurisdiction in certain cases to the territorial courts." SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the governor, to be appointed under the authority of this act, shall, immediately after entering into office, convene, at the town of Saint Stephens, such of the members of the legislative council and house of representatives of the Mississippi Territory, as may then be the representatives from the several counties within the limits of the Territory to be established by this act; and the said members shall constitute the legislative council and house of representatives for the aforesaid Alabama Territory, whose powers, in relation to the said Territory, shall be, until the expiration of the term for which they shall have been chosen, or until Congress shall otherwise provide, the same, in all respects, as are now possessed by the legislative council and house of representatives of the Mississippi Territory; and the said legislative council and house of representatives of the Alabama Territory, so formed, shall have power to nominate six persons to the President of the United States, three of whom shall be selected by him for members of the legislative council, in addition to the number which the said Territory may possess agreeably to the foregoing provisions of this section. The said legislative council and house of representatives shall also have power to elect a Delegate to Congress, who shall, in all respects, possess the same rights and immunities as other Delegates from Territories of the United States. SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That this act shall commence and be in force so |