Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution abolished slavery. The article states:
- 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 thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the Thirty-eighth Congress, on January 31, 1865.
Ratification
The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. The dates of ratification were:
| 1. | Illinois | February 1, 1865 |
| 2. | Rhode Island | February 2, 1865 |
| 3. | Michigan | February 2, 1865 |
| 4. | Maryland | February 3, 1865 |
| 5. | New York | February 3, 1865 |
| 6. | Pennsylvania | February 3, 1865 |
| 7. | West Virginia | February 3, 1865 |
| 8. | Missouri | February 6, 1865 |
| 9. | Maine | February 7, 1865 |
| 10. | Kansas | February 7, 1865 |
| 11. | Massachusetts | February 7, 1865 |
| 12. | Virginia | February 9, 1865 |
| 13. | Ohio | February 10, 1865 |
| 14. | Indiana | February 13, 1865 |
| 15. | Nevada | February 16, 1865 |
| 16. | Louisiana | February 17, 1865 |
| 17. | Minnesota | February 23, 1865 |
| 18. | Wisconsin | February 24, 1865 |
| 19. | Vermont | March 9, 1865 |
| 20. | Tennessee | April 7, 1865 |
| 21. | Arkansas | April 14, 1865 |
| 22. | Connecticut | May 4, 1865 |
| 23. | New Hampshire | July 1, 1865 |
| 24. | South Carolina | November 13, 1865 |
| 25. | Alabama | December 2, 1865 |
| 26. | North Carolina | December 4, 1865 |
| 27. | Georgia | December 6, 1865 |
Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:
| 28. | Oregon | December 8, 1865 | |
| 29. | California | December 19, 1865 | |
| 30. | Florida | December 28, 1865 | (Florida again ratified on June 9, 1868, upon its adoption of a new constitution) |
| 31. | Iowa | January 15, 1866 | |
| 32. | New Jersey | January 23, 1866 | (after having rejected the amendment on March 16, 1865) |
| 33. | Texas | February 18, 1870 | |
| 34. | Delaware | February 12, 1901 | (after having rejected the amendment on February 8, 1865) |
| 35. | Kentucky | March 18, 1976 | (after having rejected the amendment on February 24, 1865) |
| 36. | Mississippi | March 21, 1995 | (after having rejected the amendment on December 4, 1865). |
Interpretation and history
This amendment completed the abolition of slavery, which had begun with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had only applied to slaves being held in areas that were controlled by the Confederacy at the time of the Proclamation. Slaves in areas then controlled by the Union were not freed until this amendment took effect. (However, some states where slavery was formerly legal had changed their constitutions in the meantime.)
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States. Interestingly enough, the 13th Amendment makes the use of the "chain gang" or other methods of involuntary servitude by convicted criminals constitutional in the United States, as long as the methods of enforcing the servitude are not "cruel and unusual" (floggings, beatings, etc.).
See also
- Corwin Amendment — A proposed amendment that would have protected slavery
- Titles of Nobility Amendment — Alleged by some to be the "the missing thirteenth amendment"
External links
- Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Thirteenth Amendment
- Thirteenth Amendment and related resources at the Library of Congress
- National Archives: 13th Amendment
- Ghost Amendment: The Thirteenth Amendment that Never Was
