'''Amendment XIII''' (the
Thirteenth Amendment) of the
United States Constitution 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, and was declared, in a proclamation of
Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated the
December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the thirty-six States. The dates of ratification were:
Ratification was completed on
December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:
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 within states that were part of the
Confederacy during the
American Civil War. Slaves in states that did not attempt to leave the
Union were not freed until this amendment was enacted. (However, some states where slavery was formerly legal, changed their constitution in the meantime.)
See also
External links
it:Costituzione degli Stati Uniti/XIII emendamento
Amendment 13
Category:U.S. history of slavery
Category:1865 in law