13th Amendment

13th Amendment

By Adam Tyler

Text

AMENDMENT XIII

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.

Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments adopted in the five years following the American Civil War. The 13th Amendment was passed by Congress January 31, 1865 as an official end to slavery in the US. Although President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, there were many problems with having it to ensure an end to slavery in the United States. The proclamation was made using Lincoln’s war powers and there was worry it could be seen as temporary. The proclamation also only freed slaves, it did not abolish slavery itself. It also applied only to the states that were in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but it didn't apply to slave-holding border states or to Confederate states already under Union control at the time.

Lincoln's Anti-Slavery Amendment