quality:correction, stylistic:tone, structural:reformatting
Section 2: Apportionment of representatives

Under the Enumeration Clause of Article I, the size of state delegations to the House of Representatives was apportioned by adding their free populations with three-fifths of their enslaved populations. After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery except as criminal punishment, Congress wrote Section 2 to reduce state representation based on the proportion of their male citizens aged 21 years or older that were denied voting rights. Since only two of the eleven referendums on African American suffrage held in northern states between 1865 and 1869 were successful, Congress assumed that the states would not ratify a nationwide grant of such voting rights. The Senate also rejected a House proposal ordering "that whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, all persons therein of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation" because it would have permitted race-neutral discrimination.