Amendments 11-27

20th Amendment Sec. 6

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission. The Eighteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Amendments all included a time limit for ratification. All were ratified within those time limits, however, and became law.

20th Amendment Sec. 3

If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified. The Twentieth Amendment also sought to resolve some ambiguity in the Constitution regarding what to do in a hypothetical scenario in which the winner of a presidential election dies before his inauguration day, or in which no candidate wins the presidency prior to the beginning of the term. (No such scenario has ever occurred in real life, before or after the passage of the Twentieth Amendment.)

14th Amendment Sec. 3

No person shall be a Senator or Representative 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 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. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. The Fourteenth Amendment passed Congress at a moment when leading Republican lawmakers were feuding with President Andrew Johnson over how to treat the southern states of the former Confederacy in the aftermath of the Civil War. Johnson favored lenient treatment, while Congress wanted for the national government to impose stricter control over the states that had waged rebellion against it. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment made it impossible for the president to allow the former leaders of the Confederacy to regain power within the US government after regaining full citizenship rights via blanket presidential pardon; instead, the amendment required a vote of a two-thirds majority of Congress itself to allow former Confederate leaders to regain the rights of American citizenship. Unless and until they received that two-thirds vote, former Confederate leaders were barred from voting in federal elections or holding federal office.

14th Amendment Sec. 1

Passed by Congress: 13 June 1866 Ratified: 9 July 1868 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. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State 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. The second of the three "Civil War Amendments," the Fourteenth Amendment is probably the most important amendment added to the Constitution at any time since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. A Congress dominated by Radical Republicans passed the amendment specifically to protect against the threat that white southerners, defeated in the Civil War, would figure out how to use the powers of their state governments to effectively re-enslave recently liberated blacks by passing racially discriminatory laws. (Ironically, the failure of Reconstruction after 1876 led more or less exactly to this result, as the Fourteenth Amendment largely failed to protect black rights during the long Jim Crow Era.) While the amendment was passed with the rights of recently freed slaves specifically in mind, it was written in more universal terms; the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection has since been invoked by all kinds of different groups of citizens seeking to ensure equal treatment under the law. The first section of the amendment includes four crucial elements. First, anyone born on American soil is guaranteed full American citizenship. Second, no state can strip any of its residents of the full privileges of American citizenship. Third, all citizens are guaranteed "due process of law," which means that states cannot pass arbitrary or unfair laws. Fourth, all citizens are guaranteed "equal protection of the laws," which means that states cannot discriminate against particular groups of citizens. These broad guarantees of citizens' rights form (together with the Bill of Rights) the heart of American civil liberties and civil rights law.

17th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 13 May 1912 Ratified: 8 April 1913 The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct. This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution. Under the original terms of the Constitution, US Senators were not elected by the people but were, instead, selected by the various state legislatures. By the turn of the 20th century, many of the reform-minded citizens of the Progressive Era believed that this system of "indirect election" led to corruption, as political machines manipulated Senate elections and some ambitious individuals sought to literally buy a seat in the Senate by bribing state legislators. The Seventeenth Amendment ended this system, allowing direct election of US Senators by popular vote.

23rd Amendment Sec. 1-2

Passed by Congress: 16 June 1960 Ratified: 29 March 1961 Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Washington, DC, is not a state. The Electoral College, as designed in 1787, grants votes only to states. Therefore, until 1961, people who lived in the District of Columbia weren't able to vote for president. The Twenty-third Amendment gave DC residents a number of presidential electors (3) equal to those of the least populous state.

18th Amendment Sec. 1-2-3

Passed by Congress: 18 December 1917 Ratified: 16 January 1919 Repealed by 21st Amendment: 5 December 1933 Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. The Eighteenth Amendment was one of the most notorious failures of attempted social engineering in American history. Many Progressive reformers believed that alcohol was the root of much, if not all, evil in American society, and sought to end that evil by simply banning the production and sale of liquor. Prohibition against alcohol led, instead, to a huge black market in bootleg liquor, with the profits of illegal booze-selling flowing to infamous gangsters like Al Capone. After less than 15 years of Prohibition, Congress passed the Twenty-first Amendment Amendment, fully overturning the Eighteenth, in 1933.

16th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 2 July 1909 Ratified: 3 February 1913 The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. The first amendment to gain ratification in more than 40 years, the Sixteenth Amendment altered Article I, Section 9 in order to make it possible for Congress to implement the modern income tax system. Americans have been complaining about their income taxes ever since.

13th Amendment Sec. 1-2

Passed by Congress: 31 January 1865 Ratified: 6 December 1865 Section 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. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The first of the three "Civil War Amendments," the Thirteenth Amendment is pretty straightforward: It bans slavery throughout the United States or its territories.

20th Amendment Sec. 1

Passed by Congress: 2 March 1932 Ratified: 23 January 1933 The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin. When the Constitution was written in the late 18th century, things moved much more slowly than they do in modern times. Sailing across the Atlantic Ocean took several weeks; overland travel through the interior of the American continent was even slower. Long-distance communication meant sending letters through a rudimentary postal system or sending a messenger to hand-deliver important news. Therefore, the Framers of the Constitution designed a political calendar that left plenty of leeway for painfully slow travel and communication. Federal elections would thus be held in November, and the winners would be sworn into office in March—some five months later. Fast forward to the 1930s. Couriers have been replaced by the telegraph, telephone, and radio, making long-distance communication virtually instant. Horses and buggies have been replaced by railroads, automobiles, and airplanes. It no longer takes nearly half a year for the winners of elections to learn they have won and make their way to Washington, DC. And the long delay between elections and the inauguration of the winning candidates has become increasingly problematic, as the so-called "lame duck" politicians—those who haven't won a new term, but remain in office from November through March—have no political capital and thus find it almost impossible to get anything done. In 1932, this flaw in the political calendar is made all the more acute because the nation faces a grave crisis. The long winter of 1932-33—most of it occurring after Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats Herbert Hoover to win the presidency, but before Roosevelt's inauguration—happens to be the worst winter of the entire Great Depression. The defeated Hoover remains in the White House but does virtually nothing to deal with the crisis; Roosevelt, not yet in office, is likewise helpless to take action. Before Roosevelt even takes office (in March 1933), the states ratify the 20th Amendment, changing the nation's political calendar to prevent such a mess from happening again in the future. The amendment shortens the "lame-duck" period by two months by moving inauguration day, for both the president and the members of Congress, up from March to January.

21st Amendment Sec. 1

Passed by Congress: 20 February 1933 Ratified: 5 December 1933 The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. The Twenty-first ended Prohibition by overturning the Eighteenth Amendment. The Eighteenth remains the only amendment ever repealed in its entirety; Prohibition really didn't work very well at all.

22nd Amendment Sec. 1

Passed by Congress: 21 March 1947 Ratified: 27 February 1951 No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. The Constitution of 1787 set no term limits on the President of the United States. However, George Washington—the first president, and one who could have made himself president-for-life if he wanted to—voluntarily retired from office after two terms, establishing an informal two-term limit that lasted for nearly 150 years. Then Franklin D. Roosevelt got himself elected president four times in a row, serving from 1933 until he died in office in 1945. Most Americans at the time loved Roosevelt and were happy to have him stay in the White House to help guide the country through the difficult challenges of the Great Depression and World War II. After FDR was gone, however, many people began to think that the two-term limit really had been a good thing; it didn't seem healthy for a democracy to be led by the same individual for decades at a time. So the Twenty-second Amendment turned George Washington's example into official constitutional law; today no president can serve more than two full terms. (A vice president who serves out less than two years of his predecessor's term is allowed another two terms of his own, which means that it is theoretically possible for one individual to serve a maximum of ten years in the White House; in more normal circumstances, eight years is the max.)

26th Amendment Sec. 1-2

Passed by Congress: 23 March 1971 Ratified: 1 July 1971 Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. The amendment passed in 1971, near the end of the Vietnam War; the argument for lowering the voting age was that an 18-year-old who was old enough to serve and perhaps die in Vietnam ought to be old enough to vote at home.

27th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 25 September 1789 Ratified: 7 May 1992 No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened. The Twenty-seventh Amendment bars members of Congress from voting to give themselves a pay raise. They may vote to raise congressional pay, but such increases can take effect only for the next session of Congress. The most interesting thing about the Twenty-seventh Amendment, by far, is its history. The Twenty-seventh Amendment was one of the original package of twelve passed by the First Congress in 1789. Ten of those twelve gained ratification in 1791; we have known them ever since as the Bill of Rights, the famous Amendments 1-10 of the Constitution. But this amendment waited in limbo for more than 200 years before finally gaining ratification from three-fourths of the states and becoming law.

15th Amendment Sec. 1-2

Passed by Congress: 26 February 1869 Ratified: 3 February 1870 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 the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The third and final of the "Civil War Amendments," the Fifteenth Amendment sought to guarantee that former slaves would retain the right to vote by banning state suffrage laws that discriminated against any group of citizens on the basis of race. In practice, the amendment didn't work very well; by the 1880s, most southern states had figured out ways to prevent blacks from voting using laws that did not explicitly use race as the standard for disfranchisement. Most black citizens in the South only regained the right to vote, in practice, in the 1960s.

24th Amendment Sec. 1-2

Passed by Congress: 27 August 1962 Ratified: 23 January 1964 Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. One measure used by Jim Crow-era southern states to deny the right to vote to blacks was a poll tax, a special fee charged for the right to vote. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, passed at the height of the civil rights movement, banned all such poll taxes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 38 states that ratified the amendment were nearly all located in the North and West; of the states of the old Confederacy, only Florida, Tennessee, and Missouri were among the 38 who helped it take effect. The state legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama all ratified the amendment decades later, in a symbolic gesture. Six other states of the Deep South still haven't ratified it today.

19th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 4 June 1919 Ratified: 18 August 1920 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 sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The last and most consequential of the Progressive Era amendments to the Constitution, the Nineteenth Amendment granted women the right to vote. Nearly 150 years after Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal," American women also gained the right to equal citizenship.

11th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 4 March 1794 Ratified: 7 February 1795 The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State. The first post-Bill of Rights amendment to gain ratification, the Eleventh Amendment was a reaction against what many scholars view as the first Supreme Court decision of any great significance, the 1793 case of Chisholm v. Georgia. The issue in dispute was whether citizens of one state (or a foreign country) had a right to sue another state in federal court. Article III, Section 2 seemed to say yes, they did. In Chisholm v. Georgia, the Supreme Court agreed. But many states felt that such broad use of the federal court system to bring lawsuits against the various state governments would undermine the idea of federalism, shifting too much power from the states to the national government. Less than a year after the Supreme Court delivered its decision, Congress passed the Eleventh Amendment, which effectively overruled the court's decision by explicitly removing from federal court jurisdiction all cases in which the citizen of one state (or a foreign nation) sought to sue another state. Twelve of the fifteen states that then existed ratified the amendment within a year.

25th Amendment Sec. 1-4

Passed by Congress: 6 July 1965 Ratified: 10 February 1967 Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President. Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President. Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office. The Twenty-fifth Amendment is essentially a housekeeping measure, passed to clean up some ambiguities in Article II's provisions for the presidential succession. If the president dies or resigns or is removed from office, the vice president takes over. If the vice president dies or resigns or is removed from office, the president can choose a new VP, subject to confirmation by Congress. If the president submits written notice that he is no longer able to carry out the duties of his office, for whatever reason, the VP takes over. And last but not least, if the VP and a majority of the cabinet all agree that the president is no longer capable of carrying out the duties of his office, the VP can temporarily take over as Acting President. If the president disputes his removal from office, the Congress must decide whether the president should regain the powers of his office or whether the VP should remain in charge. Needless to say, this last circumstance has never happened in American history, and it would be pretty crazy if it ever did.

12th Amendment

Passed by Congress: 9 December 1803 Ratified: 15 June 1804 The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; -- the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted; -- The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. The presidential election of 1800 turned into a complete mess in the Electoral College, demonstrating serious weaknesses in the Constitution's original design of presidential elections. In 1800—one of the most important elections in American history—Thomas Jefferson defeated the incumbent president, John Adams. However, Jefferson managed to finish in an exact Electoral College tie with Aaron Burr, who was supposed to be his own vice-presidential running mate. The problem was that the Constitution's original design for presidential elections called for each member of the Electoral College to cast two votes, for his top two candidates for the presidency. When all the ballots were tallied, whoever finished first would become president, and whoever finished second would become vice president. But this system didn't account for the development of political parties and partisan presidential/vice-presidential tickets. In 1800, Jefferson's supporters in the Electoral College each voted for Jefferson and Burr; when the two men finished in a tie, it meant that the entire election was thrown into the House of Representatives, which could have voted for anyone. In the end, Jefferson's great political rival Alexander Hamilton convinced members of his own party to defer to the will of the people and allow Jefferson to become president, but any manner of mischief could have occurred. (Burr was rumored to be working to steal the presidency out from under Jefferson's nose.) In order to prevent such a debacle from happening again, the Twelfth Amendment split the balloting for the presidency from that for the vice-presidency; under the Twelfth Amendment, Electors now cast separate ballots for president and vice president.

14th Amendment Sec. 2

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. The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment repealed the three-fifths clause (Article I, Section 2, Clause 3) of the original Constitution, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning congressional representation. With slavery outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment here clarified that all residents, of whatever race, should be counted as one whole person. This section also guaranteed that all male citizens over age 21, no matter their race, had a right to vote. (In practice, many southern states devised schemes to effectively deny blacks the vote during the Jim Crow era. Later amendments to the Constitution extended the right to vote to women and lowered the voting age to 18.)

20th Amendment Sec. 5

Sections 1 and 2 shall take effect on the 15th day of October following the ratification of this article. This one's pretty self-explanatory. The new political schedule created by the Twentieth Amendment took effect on 15 October 1933.

20th Amendment Sec. 4

The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them. This is another obscure hypothetical that has never arisen as a problem in reality. But thanks to the Twentieth Amendment, Congress could do something about it if it did.

20th Amendment Sec. 2

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall begin at noon on the 3d day of January, unless they shall by law appoint a different day. The amendment also moved up the beginning of each session of Congress to early January—the same day chosen as the new inauguration day for US Senators and Representatives.

14th Amendment Sec. 5

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 5 pretty much speaks for itself.

21st Amendment Sec. 3

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress. Section 3 imposed a time limit for ratification; if three-quarters of the states hadn't ratified it within seven years, it would have become void. Fortunately for anyone who enjoys the occasional beer or glass of wine, it took the states only about seven months to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment.

21st Amendment Sec. 2

The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. Section 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment grants to the states the unique right to regulate the use and distribution of alcohol within their borders. This meant that states that continued to support Prohibition after 1933 retained the authority to impose rules stricter than those of the national government.

14th Amendment Sec. 4

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 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited payment of any debt owed to the defunct Confederate States of America and also banned any payment to former slaveholders as compensation for the loss of their human property.

22nd Amendment Sec. 2

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. The Twenty-second Amendment was ratified about four years after it was passed by Congress, making Section 2 irrelevant.