in Congress, or elector of President and 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 any 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. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such disability.

SECTION IV.-The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, 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 V.-The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE XV.-—SECTION I.—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 II.—The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The original Constitution is in the Library of the State Department at Washington, together with the resolution of the Convention submitting it to the several States for ratification. is fireproof, and the safe is a specially built fireproof receptacle.

The room

These invaluable documents were on exhibition

at the World's Fair at Chicago, and were guarded on their way thither and on their return by State Department officials and a strong guard of soldiers of the United States Army. The Constitution, which was written on five sheets, and the resolution, on one sheet, have been injured by handling, and the State Department will likely never again allow them to be taken from the safe where they are deposited.

The resolution transmitting the Constitution to the States for ratification commences: "IN CONVENTION, Monday, September 17, 1787. PRESENT, the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mr. Hamilton from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia."

The foregoing is another and final declaration that States, not men, were the framers of the Constitution. New York was not present, as heretofore shown. Hamilton was allowed to act for New York, for politic reasons. He had no

vote.

The Constitution as published by the author is correct, the errors that have crept into it by numerous reprints having been carefully eliminated.

As a lawyer the author has interpreted essen

tial portions of the instrument, and as a journalist set forth these interpretations faithfully and fearlessly for many years in the North and the South It is believed that the fundamental principles thus announced are epitomized truths, and will, as in the past, fructify in the future.