Slavery's Constitutional Grip Before The 13Th Amendment

The original US Constitution of 1787 failed to abolish slavery. While the word slave does not appear in the Constitution, slavery received important protections in the form of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted three-fifths of a state's slave population in apportioning representation, giving the South extra representation in the House of Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College. The Fugitive Slave Clause further asserted that a slave who was bound by the laws of their home state remained a slave even if they fled to a non-slavery state. The 13th Amendment, passed in 1865, finally abolished slavery in the United States, providing that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime [...] shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

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The Three-Fifths Compromise

Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives they could elect and send to Congress. On the other hand, free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, since those slaves had no voting rights. The compromise struck counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives. This gave the Southern states more power in the House relative to the North. This compromise also gave slaveholders enlarged powers in Southern legislatures.

The three-fifths ratio was first proposed as an amendment to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783. This amendment suggested that taxes be "supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes". However, this amendment ultimately failed to gain unanimous approval, falling two states short. The three-fifths ratio was eventually proposed again by James Madison and was accepted as part of the Three-Fifths Compromise.

Fugitive Slave Clause

The Fugitive Slave Clause, also known as the Slave Clause or the Fugitives From Labour Clause, was Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution. It gave slaveholders the constitutional right to reclaim their enslaved persons who had escaped to another state.

The clause stated that:

> No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, has effectively nullified the Fugitive Slave Clause. However, it is worth noting that the word "slave" is not mentioned in the clause. Instead, it refers to a "Person held to Service or Labour". This vague wording has been the subject of debate among legal scholars, who argue that it either avoided overtly validating slavery at the federal level or entrenched slaveholder power.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was the basis for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which gave slaveholders the explicit right to capture their escaped enslaved persons. The enforcement provisions of this act were strengthened in 1850, further polarising public opinion. Resistance to the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Clause and Act increased in the 19th century, particularly in the Northern states, where several "personal liberty laws" were enacted to protect free Black residents and provide safeguards for accused fugitives.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

Before the 13th Amendment, slavery was sparingly mentioned in the US Constitution. Only the Three-Fifths Compromise, mentioned in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, made any reference to the way enslaved persons were to be regarded by the federal government, that being as “three-fifths” of a fully free citizen. The Fugitive Slave Clause, located in Article IV, Section 2, further asserted that a slave who was bound by the laws of their home state remained a slave wherever they went, even if they fled to a non-slavery state.

Now, on to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring:

> [A]ll persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

The proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. It also allowed for former slaves to be received into the armed services.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime document and a military measure. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control, such as New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana.

The Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, but it did fundamentally transform the character of the war. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically.

Lincoln recognised that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery. He encouraged border states to adopt abolition and pushed for the passage of the 13th Amendment.

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The Civil War

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, political tensions simmered as abolitionists and proponents of slavery argued over whether new U.S. territories would be admitted to the union as slave or free states. The 1787 ordinance that the Confederation Congress enacted to govern the newly acquired Northwest Territory prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Over the first few decades of the United States’ existence, every state in the North had either eliminated slavery entirely or provided ways for slaves to be emancipated or to emancipate themselves. No such offerings were given in the Southern states, where the largest amount of slave labor was concentrated in the country.

The spread of slavery, as well as the opposing anti-slavery and abolitionist movements, made slavery the most pertinent American policy issue in the first half of the 19th century. An abolitionist movement, headed by figures such as William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Dwight Weld, and Angelina Grimké, grew in strength in the North, calling for the immediate end of slavery nationwide and exacerbating tensions between North and South.

In 1861 and 1862, Congress enacted legislation known as the Confiscation Acts that freed enslaved persons who came within Union lines and had been under Confederate masters, but this legislation was ineffective. On September 22, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which came into effect on January 1, 1863. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion. Texas was the last Confederate slave state, where enforcement of the proclamation was declared on June 19, 1865.

The Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation since it only applied to areas of the Confederacy currently in a state of rebellion (and not even to the loyal “border states” that remained in the Union). Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment to guarantee the abolishment of slavery. The 13th Amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union. It was ratified on December 6, 1865, and was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments, adopted following the Civil War. The Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, except as punishment for a crime.

Reconstruction Amendments

The Reconstruction Amendments, also known as the Civil War Amendments, are the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. These amendments were part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South following the Civil War.

13th Amendment

The 13th Amendment, passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the United States and all territories under its control, except as punishment for a crime. It was ratified on February 1, 1865, by President Abraham Lincoln and by the required number of states (27 out of 33) on December 6, 1865. The official text of the amendment states:

> "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. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment, proposed in 1866 and ratified in 1868, addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law for all persons. It guarantees that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens and that states cannot deprive individuals of life, liberty, or property without due process. The 14th Amendment also changed a portion of Article I, Section 2, which was later altered by the 26th Amendment.

15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment, proposed in 1869 and ratified on February 3, 1870, prohibits federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This amendment was a response to the restriction of voting rights to white men in all states by 1869. It was the final amendment of the Reconstruction Amendments, ensuring that the newly granted civil and political rights could not be easily repealed.

While the Reconstruction Amendments were a significant step towards abolishing slavery and expanding civil rights, their promise was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions in the late 19th century. It was not until the mid-20th century, with Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education and legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that the full benefits of these amendments were realized.

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