[{"command":"add_css","data":[{"rel":"stylesheet","media":"all","href":"\/sites\/default\/files\/css\/css_rZjCmUBEHftE91DeNru5KqLSSaOmvYzpnCjBdzKdLqM.css?delta=0\u0026language=en\u0026theme=heritage_theme\u0026include=eJwrTi1LzdNPzkksLq7Uy8tPSQUAPMsGtA"}]},{"command":"invoke","selector":null,"method":"openEssay","args":["10000171","\n\n\u003Carticle about=\u0022\/constitution\/amendments\/14\/essays\/172\/apportionment-of-representatives\u0022 class=\u0022node node--type-constitution-essay node--promoted node--view-mode-embedded clearfix\u0022\u003E\n  \u003Ch1 class=\u0022title\u0022\u003E\u003Cspan\u003EApportionment of Representatives\u003C\/span\u003E\n\u003C\/h1\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-location\u0022\u003E\n      Amendment XIV, Section 2\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-context\u0022\u003E\n      \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERepresentatives 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-body\u0022\u003E\n    \n            \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn his speech of April 11, 1865, President Abraham\u0026nbsp;Lincoln described the Southern states that\u0026nbsp;had rebelled in the Civil War as being \u201cout of their\u0026nbsp;proper practical relation with the Union.\u201d In setting\u0026nbsp;the terms for the reintegration of those states\u0026nbsp;with the Union, the Reconstruction Congress had\u0026nbsp;to deal with several issues in addition to that of the\u0026nbsp;status of the freedmen: representation in Congress,\u0026nbsp;the political status of high-ranking rebels, and the\u0026nbsp;debts of the United States and Confederate States.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe abolition of slavery increased the political\u0026nbsp;power of the former slave states in the House of Representatives.\u0026nbsp;Under the Three-fifths Clause of the\u0026nbsp;original Constitution (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3),\u0026nbsp;five slaves had counted as three persons; now they\u0026nbsp;would be counted as five persons, though none of\u0026nbsp;the Southern states would have permitted them to\u0026nbsp;vote. Section 2 was a major concern in the South.\u0026nbsp;Paper after paper carried charts showing its impact\u0026nbsp;on Southern representation in Congress. The framers\u0026nbsp;of the Fourteenth Amendment intended Section\u0026nbsp;2 to encourage the Southern states to enfranchise\u0026nbsp;blacks, without directly compelling them to do so\u2014for few Northern states allowed blacks to vote. Democrats\u0026nbsp;condemned any congressional interference in\u0026nbsp;the traditionally state-controlled matter of voting,\u0026nbsp;and radical Republicans objected to the implicit\u0026nbsp;approval of racial qualifications for voting. Section\u0026nbsp;2 was, therefore, a compromise position acceptable\u0026nbsp;to the moderate Republicans who held the balance\u0026nbsp;of power in Congress. A state like South Carolina\u0026nbsp;or Mississippi, with a 50 percent black population,\u0026nbsp;would lose half of its seats in the House if Section 2\u0026nbsp;were invoked. A state like New Hampshire or Michigan,\u0026nbsp;with almost no blacks, would not lose any seats.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EAlthough Section 2 allowed the disenfranchisement\u0026nbsp;of persons who had engaged in the\u0026nbsp;rebellion, none was denied the vote on those\u0026nbsp;grounds. Neither did Congress reduce the representation\u0026nbsp;of any Southern state that restricted\u0026nbsp;the franchise on the basis of race.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Fifteenth Amendment made Section 2\u0026nbsp;superfluous concerning \u201crace, color or previous\u0026nbsp;condition of servitude,\u201d and Congress never seriously\u0026nbsp;attempted to apply it when Southern states\u0026nbsp;began to disfranchise blacks\u2014largely because such\u0026nbsp;disfranchisement was cast in racially neutral terms.\u0026nbsp;As it turned out, the inability or unwillingness to\u0026nbsp;enforce either Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment\u0026nbsp;or the provisions of the Fifteenth Amendment\u0026nbsp;was the Achilles\u2019 heel of emancipation in the\u0026nbsp;Reconstruction period and the years that followed\u0026nbsp;because without federal enforcement, blacks were\u0026nbsp;unable to protect themselves through the political\u0026nbsp;process. In one federal case, a putative candidate\u0026nbsp;for Congress from Virginia sued under Section 2 of\u0026nbsp;the Fourteenth Amendment to compel the state to\u0026nbsp;adopt an at-large electoral system, because the state,\u0026nbsp;by the poll tax, was not entitled to the nine seats\u0026nbsp;that Congress had apportioned to it after the 1940\u0026nbsp;census. The Court dismissed the suit as a \u201cpolitical\u0026nbsp;question.\u201d \u003Cem\u003ESaunders v. Wilkins\u003C\/em\u003E (1945).\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EDespite being written in a particular historical\u0026nbsp;context, Section 2 is still in operation and would\u0026nbsp;apply in future cases of rebellion. By referring to\u0026nbsp;\u201crebellion, or other crime,\u201d it recognizes and makes\u0026nbsp;an exception for purposes of apportionment for\u0026nbsp;states\u2019 traditional disfranchisement based on non-race-based criminal conduct. The Supreme Court\u0026nbsp;has inferred from Section 2 that states may disenfranchise\u0026nbsp;convicted felons subsequent to their\u0026nbsp;prison sentences. \u003Cem\u003ERichardson v. Ramirez\u003C\/em\u003E (1974).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EIn \u003Cem\u003EReynolds v. Sims\u003C\/em\u003E (1964), Justice John M.\u0026nbsp;Harlan decried the Court\u2019s continuing disregard\u0026nbsp;of Section 2. In dissenting from the Court\u2019s adoption\u0026nbsp;of the one person, one vote rule, he stated,\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cblockquote\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EI am unable to understand the Court\u2019s\u0026nbsp;utter disregard of the second section\u0026nbsp;which expressly recognizes the States\u2019\u0026nbsp;power to deny \u201cor in any way\u201d abridge\u0026nbsp;the right of their inhabitants to vote\u0026nbsp;for \u201cthe members of the [state] legislature,\u201d\u0026nbsp;and its express provision of a\u0026nbsp;remedy for such denial or abridgment.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Harlan was pointing out that there\u0026nbsp;are sufficient political checks available to Congress\u0026nbsp;to correct malapportionment at the state\u0026nbsp;level without the need of judicial intervention.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\n\n\u003Cp\u003ENonetheless, the failure of Congress to\u0026nbsp;impose remedies for the South\u2019s disenfranchisement\u0026nbsp;of black voters resulted in a larger number\u0026nbsp;of representatives and hence electoral votes than\u0026nbsp;otherwise would have been the case, giving Democratic\u0026nbsp;presidential candidates some advantage.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n      \n  \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--media\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--photo\u0022 style=\u0022background-image: url(\/sites\/default\/files\/Paul_Moreno.jpg)\u0022\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--info\u0022\u003E\n              \u003Ch4 class=\u0022con-essay-author--name\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.hillsdale.edu\/academics\/display_profile.asp?cid=858990098\u0022\u003EPaul Moreno\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/h4\u003E\n                  \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-author--job\u0022\u003E\n         William and Berniece Grewcock Chair in Constitutional History, Hillsdale College\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n            \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n\n    \u003Cdiv class=\u0022con-essay-tabs\u0022\u003E\n      \u003Cul data-tabs class=\u0022tabs\u0022\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000171-taba\u0022\u003EFurther Reading\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000171-tabb\u0022\u003ECase Law\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n        \u003Cli class=\u0022button-more thirds\u0022\u003E\u003Ca data-tab href=\u0022#node-10000171-tabc\u0022\u003ERelated Essays\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\n      \u003C\/ul\u003E\n\n      \u003Cdiv data-tabs-content\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000171-taba\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJames E. Bond, No Easy Walk to Freedom: Reconstruction and the Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment (1997)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorace E. Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (1908)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJoseph B. James, The Framing of the Fourteenth Amendment (1956)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVirginia Commission on Constitutional Government, The Reconstruction Amendments\u0027 Debates: the Legislative History and Contemporary Debates in Congress on the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments (Alfred Avians ed., 1967)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000171-tabb\u0022\u003E\n          \n      \u003Cdiv\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESaunders v. Wilkins, 152 F.2d 235 (4th Cir. 1945)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EReynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n              \u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERichardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974)\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n          \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n        \u003C\/div\u003E\n        \u003Cdiv data-tabs-pane class=\u0022tabs-pane\u0022 id=\u0022node-10000171-tabc\u0022\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000005\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003EThree-fifths Clause\u003C\/a\u003E\n                      \u003Ca href=\u0022\/essay_controller\/10000175\u0022 class=\u0022use-ajax\u0022\u003ESuffrage\u2014Race\u003C\/a\u003E\n                  \u003C\/div\u003E\n      \u003C\/div\u003E\n    \u003C\/div\u003E\n  \n\u003C\/article\u003E\n"]}]