The Emancipation Proclamation: 13Th Amendment To The Us Constitution

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the nation, except as punishment for a crime. The road to the abolition of slavery in the US was a long and arduous one, with several key moments preceding the 13th Amendment, including President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, which declared almost all slaves in Confederate-controlled areas free. However, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, and it was clear that a constitutional amendment was needed to ensure the permanent and nationwide abolition of slavery.

Explore related products

Who Freed the Slaves?: The Fight over the Thirteenth Amendment

$22.99 $32

Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment (Concise Lincoln Library)

$24.03 $24.95

13th, 14th & 15th Amendments: US Reconstruction 1865-1877 Post Civil War Grade 5 Social Studies Children's American History

$20.73 $33.99

Fixing the Framers' Failure, 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment and America's New Birth of Freedom

$16.99 $24.95

The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History (Constitutional Amendments)

$78 $78

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

$16.69 $17.95

The Thirteenth Amendment

The 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." This amendment was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War; the others are the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fifteenth Amendment. These amendments respectively addressed citizenship rights and voting rights, especially for freed slaves.

Before the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery had been a contentious issue since the drafting of the Constitution. The original Constitution included several provisions regarding slavery, including the Three-Fifths Compromise, which allowed slaves to be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in Congress and taxation. The Fugitive Slave Clause, or Article IV, Section 2, Clause 3, required slaves who fled to free states to be returned to their owners. The importation of slaves was also prohibited after 1808.

The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment was a pivotal moment in American history, marking the official end of slavery as a legal institution. It was the culmination of decades of efforts by abolitionists and anti-slavery advocates, and it set the stage for the continued fight for equal rights and justice for all Americans, regardless of race or color.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

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

> that all 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. However, it did not end slavery in the nation as it only applied to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control.

Lincoln recognised that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment to guarantee the abolishment of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union. It abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. It was ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18, 1865.

The Fugitive Slave Clause

"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."

In simple terms, this clause established the legal framework for the return of escaped enslaved people to their owners, even if they had fled to a state that had abolished slavery. It prevented states from offering freedom or protection to escaped enslaved people and required them to cooperate in returning escaped enslaved people to their owners.

The inclusion of the Fugitive Slave Clause in the Constitution was a compromise between the northern and southern states during the Constitutional Convention. The southern states, which relied heavily on slavery and the labor of enslaved people, insisted on this provision to protect their economic interests and maintain the institution of slavery. The northern states, despite having a weaker stance on slavery, agreed to this compromise to ensure the ratification of the Constitution and the formation of a unified nation.

Over time, the Fugitive Slave Clause became a source of contention and a focal point for the growing abolitionist movement. Many people in the north, including prominent abolitionists, saw the clause as a moral outrage and an infringement on the rights of free states to determine their own laws regarding slavery. This tension eventually contributed to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which strengthened the enforcement of the clause and increased the powers of federal authorities to capture and return escaped enslaved people to their owners.

Explore related products

The Reconstruction Amendments: How the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments Changed America

$7

Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union (Civil War America)

$56.51 $27.95

Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society)

$19.53 $32.99

The 13th Amendment Freedom Week Manual

$9.95 $24.95

Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment

$34.95 $44.95

The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment

$79.96 $79.99

The Three-Fifths Compromise

Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states, on the other hand, wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in slave states, as those slaves had no voting rights. This impasse was resolved by a compromise that 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 effectively gave the Southern states more power in the House relative to the North.

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

Post-war status of slaves

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States and its territories, except as punishment for a crime. This amendment was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments following the American Civil War, and it provided a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery.

However, the postwar status of slaves remained uncertain, and the Southern states did not readily accept the abolition of slavery. The 13th Amendment did not address the social and economic inequalities that formerly enslaved people continued to face. For example, the "Black Codes" were a set of laws enacted in the post-Civil War South that restricted the civil liberties and economic opportunities of African Americans, effectively limiting the impact of the 13th Amendment.

The 13th Amendment also did not prohibit all forms of forced labour, as it allowed for involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime. This exception has been used to justify systems of mass incarceration and forced labour in prisons, particularly affecting communities of colour.

Additionally, while the 13th Amendment abolished chattel slavery, it did not eliminate all forms of slavery in the United States. For example, it did not address the issue of debt bondage or peonage, where people are forced to work to repay debts.

In conclusion, while the 13th Amendment played a crucial role in abolishing slavery as an institution in the United States, it did not completely eradicate the social, economic, and legal inequalities faced by formerly enslaved people. The postwar status of slaves remained precarious, and it took further amendments, legislation, and social movements to address these ongoing injustices.

Frequently asked questions