Thirteenth Amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery. Its first section states that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" should exist within the United States or in any place subject to its jurisdiction. The second section grants Congress the power to "enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Early in the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln repeatedly assured "loyal" planters that they would be able to keep their slaves, and the Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, specifically exempted most slaves held in areas already under federal military occupation and in the loyal border states. Yet, by encouraging abolitionist sentiment and authorizing the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army, the Emancipation Proclamation also changed the focus of the war into a struggle against slavery itself—regardless of where it existed.

Because the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued as a war measure, some feared that it might be judged unconstitutional after the war's end. Lincoln came under increasing political pressure from within his Republican Party to resolve the issue with a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The Republican platform of 1864 strongly supported such an amendment, and when Lincoln was re-elected in November, he began an aggressive attempt to win passage from the "lame duck" Congress in early 1865. Though the Democratic opposition had the votes to prevent passage of the amendment in the House of Representatives, Lincoln's electoral mandate served to undermine their unity. Furthermore, secret promises of administration patronage, approaching outright bribery, secured sufficient Democratic votes and absences to allow passage by a vote of 119 to 56—two votes above the required two-thirds margin.

After passage, the proposed amendment then required endorsement by three-quarters of the state legislature for ratification. It was rapidly passed by most of the northern states, and so its ratification rested with the actions of the southern states, then in constitutional limbo after the collapse of the Confederacy in April 1865. President Andrew Johnson, eager to readmit the southern states to the Union under the "lenient" terms of Reconstruction, told southern legislatures that ratification of the amendment was a prerequisite for restoration to the Union. The southern constitutional conventions were very uncomfortable with this condition, especially the second section of the amendment, which apparently legitimated federal intervention to secure civil rights against state intrusion. Mississippi refused to ratify the amendment altogether, but most southern states complied with the president's emphatic instruction, and the amendment was declared ratified on December 18, 1865. Despite the end of the war, the border states of Kentucky and Delaware had refused to emancipate their slaves, so the amendment had a direct and practical effect in those states. In Oklahoma, slavery was abolished in 1866 by a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, thus bringing a formal end to the institution in the entire United States.

The legal interpretation of the Thirteen Amendment engenders continuing controversy, specifically the section granting Congress enforcement powers. Many proponents of the legislation have offered an expansive view of the amendment, maintaining that it gives Congress the power to overturn all state legislation inconsistent with basic civil liberties. Others have taken a more restrained, narrowly defined view of the powers it grants, arguing that its only purpose is to outlaw slavery.

See also Emancipation in the United States; Slavery; Slavery and the Constitution

Bibliography

Cox, LaWanda, and John H. Cox. Politics, Principle, and Prejudice, 1865–1866: Dilemma of Reconstruction America. New York: Free Press, 1969.

Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union: The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on the Constitution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.

Maltz, Earl M. Civil Rights, the Constitution, and Congress, 1863–1869. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.

Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

michael w. fitzgerald (1996)
Updated bibliography