Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution officially abolished, and continues to prohibit, slavery, and, with limited exceptions such as those convicted of a crime, prohibits involuntary servitude. The Amendment in practice emancipated only the slaves of Delaware and Kentucky, as everywhere else the slaves had been freed by state action or by the federal government's Emancipation Proclamation. But supporters such as Abraham Lincoln (who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation) supported the Amendment as a means to guarantee the permanent abolition of slavery. The amendment was authored and sponsored by Senator John Brooks Henderson of the slave state of Missouri.

The amendment states: Template:Cquote

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. Although it was ratified by the necessary three-quarters of the states within a year of its proposal, its most recent ratification occurred as recently as 1995, in Mississippi, which was the last of the thirty-six states in existence in 1865 to ratify it.

1 Ratification
2 Interpretation and history
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

Ratification

The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. The dates of ratification were:

1.	Illinois	February 1, 1865
2.	Rhode Island	February 2, 1865
3.	Michigan	February 2, 1865
4.	Maryland	February 3, 1865
5.	New York	February 3, 1865
6.	Pennsylvania	February 3, 1865
7.	West Virginia	February 3, 1865
8.	Missouri	February 6, 1865
9.	Maine	February 7, 1865
10.	Kansas	February 7, 1865
11.	Massachusetts	February 7, 1865
12.	Virginia	February 9, 1865
13.	Ohio	February 10, 1865
14.	Indiana	February 13, 1865
15.	Nevada	February 16, 1865
16.	Louisiana	February 17, 1865
17.	Minnesota	February 23, 1865
18.	Wisconsin	February 24, 1865
19.	Vermont	March 9, 1865
20.	Tennessee	April 7, 1865
21.	Arkansas	April 14, 1865
22.	Connecticut	May 4, 1865
23.	New Hampshire	June 1, 1865
24.	South Carolina	November 13, 1865
25.	Alabama	December 2, 1865
26.	North Carolina	December 4, 1865
27.	Georgia	December 6, 1865

Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:

28.	Oregon	December 8, 1865
29.	California	December 19, 1865
30.	Florida	December 28, 1865	(Florida again ratified on June 9, 1868, upon its adoption of a new constitution)
31.	Iowa	January 15, 1866
32.	New Jersey	January 23, 1866	(after having rejected the amendment on March 16, 1865)
33.	Texas	February 18, 1870
34.	Delaware	February 12, 1901	(after having rejected the amendment on February 8, 1865)
35.	Kentucky	March 18, 1976	(after having rejected the amendment on February 24, 1865)
36.	Mississippi	March 16, 1995	(after having rejected the amendment on December 4, 1865).

Interpretation and history

This amendment completed the abolition of slavery, which had begun with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. About 40,000 slaves remained in Kentucky and they were freed by the Amendment.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States.^[1] 240 U.S. 328 (1916)

The Thirteenth Amendment also prohibits specific performance as a judicial remedy for violations of contracts for personal services such as employment contracts.

Offenses against the Thirteenth Amendment were being prosecuted as late as 1947.^[2]

Notes

Cases under the 13th Amendment have been prosecuted since 1865, and the federal anti-slavery statutes were updated in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, P.L. 386-106, which expanded the federal statutes' coverage to cases in which victims are enslaved through psychological, as well as physical, coercion.