[1] Equity is hard to define.  According to Aristotle it is “the rectification of the law, when, by reason of its universality, it is deficient.”  Blackstone says, “Equity, in its true and genuine meaning, is the soul and spirit of all law....  Equity is synonymous with justice.”  It is the province of law to establish a code of rules whereby injustice may be prevented, and it may therefore be said that all law is equitable.  “In a technical sense, the term equity is applied to those cases not specifically provided for by positive law.” (See page 208; also Dole’s Talk’s About Law, page 502.)

[2] According to III. 2, a state could be sued for a debt the same as an individual, and shortly after the adoption of the constitution several of them were sued for debts incurred during the Revolutionary War.  Pride and poverty both prompted the states to desire immunity from such suits.  Hence the adoption of this amendment. (See page 209.)

[3] A non-resident secures the payment of a debt due from a state in the same way as a resident—­by legislative appropriation.

ARTICLE XII.

MODE OF CHOOSING THE PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT.

The amendment has been discussed in connection with Article II. of the constitution, pages 184-6.

ARTICLE XIII.

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

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.

This amendment, one of the “first fruits” of the Civil War, put an end to slavery in the United States.  The wording was taken, almost verbatim, from the Ordinance of 1787.

ARTICLE XIV.

MISCELLANEOUS RECONSTRUCTION PROVISIONS.

SECTION I.—­“CITIZEN” DEFINED. PRIVILEGES GUARANTEED.

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.[1] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall 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.[2]

[1] This provision defines citizenship.  It was worded with the special view of including the negroes.  It embodies the principle of the Civil Rights Bill, and is intended to guarantee to the negroes the protection implied in citizenship.

[2] Some of the amendments impose limitations only on the general government.  Lest the states in which slavery had recently been abolished should endeavor to oppress the ex-slaves this provision was made as a limitation upon the states.