service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

SECTION 3.

1. [New states.]-New states may be admitted by the Congress into this Union, but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

2. [Territories.]-The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

SECTION 4.

1. [Republican form of government; protection of states.]-The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the legislature, or of the Executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

Note.-Chief Justice Waite, in Minor v. Happersett (1874) 21 Wall. 162, 175, 22 L. ed. 627, 631, considering the guaranty of a republican form of government, said: "No particular government is designated as republican, neither is the exact form to be guaranteed, in any manner especially designated. Here, as in other parts of the instrument, we are compelled to resort elsewhere to ascertain what was in

tended. The guaranty necessarily implies a duty on the part of the states themselves to provide such a government. All the states had governments when the Constitution was adopted. In all, the people participated to some extent, through their representatives elected in the manner specially provided. These governments the Constitution did not change. They were accepted precisely as they were, and it is therefore to be presumed that they were such as it was the duty of the states to provide. Thus we have unmistakable evidence of what was republican in form, within the meaning of that term as employed in the Constitution."

ARTICLE V.

1. [Amendments.]-The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution; or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification. may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Note. The President's veto power does not apply to a proposition to amend the Constitution. He has nothing to do with constitutional amendments. Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798) 3 Dall. 378, 1 L. ed. 644.

ARTICLE VI.

1. [Debts under the confederation.]-All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States, under this Constitution, as under the confederation.

2. [Supreme law.]-This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Note. "The United States is a government with authority extending over the whole territory of the Union, acting upon the states and upon the people of the states. While it is limited in the number of its powers, so far as its sovereignty extends it is supreme. No state government can exclude it from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, obstruct its authorized officers against its will, or withhold from it for a moment the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has committed to it." Tennessee v. Davis (1879) 100 U. S. 263, 25 L. ed. 650.

3. [Oath of office; no religious test.]—The sena tors and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

ARTICLE VII.

1. [Ratification.]—The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the states so ratifying the same.

Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the states present, the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, President, and Deputy from Virginia.