But this provision is general in it nature, and by means of it the United States can protect individuals against oppression on the part of the states.  Pomeroy [Footnote:  Constitutional Law, p. 151.] regards this as the most important amendment except the thirteenth.

SECTION II.—­BASIS of REPRESENTATION.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.  But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States, representatives in congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Each state determines who may vote within its borders.  This provision was intended as an inducement to the former slave states to grant franchise to the colored men.  It does not compel them to do this.  But granting the franchise increases their representation.  The fifteenth amendment is more imperative in this direction.

SECTION III.—­DISABILITIES of REBELS.

No person shall be a senator or representative in congress, or elector of president or vice-president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.[1] But congress may, by a two-thirds vote of each house, remove such disability.[2]

[1] The primary purpose of this provision was to exclude from public office those who in the Civil War, by entering the service of the Confederate States, broke an oath previously taken.  Though the persons whom it was immediately intended to affect will soon all be “with the silent majority,” the provision, by being made part of the constitution, will remain a warning to all in the future.

[2] The disabilities have been removed from all but a few of those immediately referred to.  This clause seems to put another limitation upon the power of the president to grant pardons.  From 1862 to 1867 the president had been specially authorized by congress to grant amnesty to political offenders.  And in 1867 President Johnson continued to grant such amnesty, denying the power of congress to put any limitation upon the president’s pardoning power.  But this provision specifically places the power to relieve certain disabilities in the hands of congress.  The “two-thirds” vote is required in order that such disabilities may not be easily removed.