Thirteenth Amendment: Abolished Slavery

THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT: Abolished slavery

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.

The Thirteenth amendment was a change made to free all slaves or any who was forced to do something against their will unless it was punishment for a crime and they were being punished for a crime. This amendment applied to all that lived in the United States. In 1863, President Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation declaring, based on his war powers, that within named States and parts of States in rebellion against the United States ''all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free. The thirteenth amendment of the of the United States officially stopped slavery. The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have authorized by the legislatures only twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. The states that were approved were; Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, W. Virginia, Missouri, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, S. Carolina, N. Carolina and Georgia. Approval of all the 36 states was finalized on December 6, 1865 when the rest of the 36 ratified; Oregon, California, Florida, Iowa, New Jersey and Texas.

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT: