You referenced my statement that was referring to the original text about the Census and congressional representation, which refers to both slaves and free-persons and delineates between the 2.

Furthermore, since the 14th Amendment resulted from the end of slavery and addressed issues of it, then slavery is relevant to it.

quote:
ETA- So, I’m agreeing with you on that; let’s only look at the actual text.

Well the text in the Constitution regarding the census and its impact on approbations does refer to slavery but the 14th Amendment made it useless.

The fact is nothing in the original Constitution has changed: all free persons (i.e., now everybody) is to be counted and appropriations are based on the data. If, and only if, states denied eligible voters the right to vote, then the Constitution allows for their proportion of the population can be reduced accordingly, although it has never been successfully enforced.

Article 1, Section 2 of the United States Constitution:

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Posted by SlapahoeTribe

Tiger Nation

Member since Jul 2012

12129 posts

Posted on 7/12/19 at 2:36 am to buckeye_vol

quote:
appropriations are based on the data. If, and only if, states denied eligible voters the right to vote, then the Constitution allows for their proportion of the population can be reduced accordingly

Where does it state this?

It only says “denied.” Not “improperly denied.” Not “denied by the State.”

Are illegals allowed to vote? No. They are denied (deprived of) that right.

In fact (perhaps more importantly), look just past the qualifications of the denial (being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States,) to what follows them: “or in any way abridged.” Care to guess what the old meaning of abridged was? Deprived.

So, we have, as the text is written, that it isn’t an action taken by a state, and it applies to anyone that in “any way” isn’t allowed to vote. Then it directs the representation to be reduced to an amount that would be proportional to having only counted the number of eligible voters.

*Edit for predictive text errors.

This post was edited on 7/12/19 at 2:40 am

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