The Long Road To Freedom: Pre-Constitution Anti-Slavery Efforts

The ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865 was the final answer to the question of slavery in the US. Before this, the Constitution seemed to protect slavery in the states, prohibited Congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years, and required that fugitive slaves be returned to their masters. However, some regarded slavery as a doomed system, destined to disappear from the country.

Explore related products

The Anti-Slavery Alphabet: Printed For The Anti-slavery Fair in Philadelphia in 1846 (Annotated)

$2.99 $7.98

An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans: Early Anti-Slavery Movement (Annotated)

$17.99

Emigration from India : the Export of Coolies, and Other Labourers, to Mauritius 1842 [Leather Bound]

$36

Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 14. The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (1808-1831)

$20.95

The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World Book 19)

$36.11 $53

Against Popery: Britain, Empire, and Anti-Catholicism (Early American Histories)

$45.5 $45.5

The Thirteenth Amendment

The Amendment was drafted to ensure that abolition was beyond legal challenge. The Senate passed the Amendment on 8 April 1864, and after one unsuccessful vote and extensive legislative maneuvering by the Lincoln administration, the House followed suit on 31 January 1865. The measure was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border states up to the assassination of President Lincoln. President Andrew Johnson encouraged the "reconstructed" Southern states of Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia to agree, bringing the total to 27 states and leading to its adoption before the end of 1865.

Although the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, some black Americans, particularly in the South, continued to face other forms of involuntary labor, such as under the Black Codes. Despite these challenges, the Thirteenth Amendment stood as a powerful testament to the enduring quest for freedom and equality in the United States.

The Civil War

On April 8, 1864, the Senate passed an amendment to abolish slavery. The House followed suit on January 31, 1865, and the measure was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border states. The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, and it forbade chattel slavery across the United States and in every territory under its control, except as a criminal punishment.

Although the Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States, some black Americans, particularly in the South, were still subjected to other forms of involuntary labor, such as under the Black Codes.

Fugitive slaves

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which was ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. However, the Fugitive Slave Clause, located in Article IV, Section 2, stated 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. This meant that fugitive slaves were not free and could be returned to their masters.

The Fugitive Slave Clause was part of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which was designed to handle the apportionment of the substantial enslaved population across the country, specifically for measuring the number of seats the individual states should have in the House of Representatives. The Compromise of 1850 temporarily defused the issue by admitting California as a free state, instituting a stronger Fugitive Slave Act, banning the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and allowing New Mexico and Utah self-determination on the slavery issue.

Despite the 13th Amendment, slavery was not abolished. There were four million freedmen, most of whom remained on the same plantations, doing the same work as before. They were getting about the same wages and were subject to slave codes modified only in name. There were thousands of fugitives in the camps of soldiers or on the streets of the cities, homeless, sick, and impoverished. They had been freed with no land, money, or legal status, and without protection.

Explore related products

Anti-Slavery Before Garrison: An Address at a Meeting of the Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, September 19, A D. 1902 (Classic Reprint)

$29.72

Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilisation of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade 1787-1807 (Routledge Studies in Slave and Post-Slave Societies and Cultures)

$66.99

Juneteenth (Celebrate the World)

$8.99

Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursulines and the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834 (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American ... and the University of North Carolina Press)

$16.19 $29.99

The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: A Campaign against the African Slave Trade (Annotated)

$1.99 $15.99

Three Documents of Freedom Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights

$15.97

Involuntary labour

However, the road to abolition was not straightforward. The Constitution, on the surface, seemed to protect slavery in the states, prohibited Congress from banning the slave trade for twenty years, and required that fugitive slaves, even in the North, be returned to their masters. Because of these apparent protections, a bloody Civil War was fought to free the slaves and win ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment was passed by the Senate on 8 April 1864, and by the House on 31 January 1865. It was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border states, up until the assassination of President Lincoln. President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, encouraged the "reconstructed" Southern states of Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia to agree, bringing the count to 27 states and leading to its adoption before the end of 1865.

Despite the abolition of slavery, some black Americans, particularly in the South, were subjected to other forms of involuntary labour, such as under the Black Codes.

Anti-slavery sentiment

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which abolished slavery, was ratified on 6 December 1865. The Amendment was the culmination of a long anti-slavery movement in the US.

The Constitution, on the surface, seemed to protect slavery in the states, prohibited Congress from banning the slave trade for 20 years, and required that fugitive slaves, even in the North, be returned to their masters. However, some historians argue that the Constitution was anti-slavery. This is because it stated that the price the slave states would have to pay for coming into the American Union was the eventual disappearance of slavery.

The 13th Amendment was the final answer to the question surrounding the institution of slavery in the United States. It was ratified after a bloody Civil War was fought to free the slaves. The Amendment was swiftly ratified by nearly all Northern states, along with a sufficient number of border states. However, some black Americans, particularly in the South, were still subjected to other forms of involuntary labour, such as under the Black Codes.

Frequently asked questions