AN ACT
To ratify the Joint Resolution of Congress, passed February 27, 1869, proposing
an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Approved October 8, 1869.
Whereas, it is provided by the Constitution of the United States of
America, that Congress may, whenever two thirds of both Houses deem it
necessary, propose amendments to the same, to be ratified by the Legislatures
of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions therein, as
the one or the other mode may be proposed by Congress.
And, whereas, by the Fortieth Congress of the United States, at the
third session thereof, begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday
the seventh day of December, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, it
was
"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America, in Congress assembled (two thirds of both Houses concurring),
That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the
several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid as
part of the Constitution, namely:
