December 6 - 13th Amendment

This Day in History: 6 December 2019

 

6 December 1865

 

154 years ago, today, the 13^th Amendment of the United States Constitution was ratified, resulting in the abolishment of slavery. This came in the aftermath of the US Civil War and was the first explicit mention of slavery in the US Constitution. The founders of the US owned slaves themselves, even though they acknowledged that slavery was morally wrong, and there was even a law that banned the importation of slaves from Africa, signed by Thomas Jefferson, but the practise continued, particularly in the South. By 1861, when the Civil War started, more than 4 million people were held as slaves.

 

Abraham Lincoln, the president at the time, was convinced that giving the slaves freedom would help win the Civil War, so he enacted the Emancipation Proclaim in 1863, and announced that slaves shall be "forever free". However, this did not end slavery in the US, as it only applied to the 11 states then at war against the Union. Because of this, in April 1864, the Senate passed a proposed amendment banning slavery, gaining two-thirds majority, but failed to gain the Democrats support, and failed in the House of Representatives. On January 31, 1865, however, the House passed the proposed amendment, but just before Lincoln could oversee the final ratification, he was assassinated on April 14, 1865. The necessary number of states did not ratify the 13^th Amendment until December 6, 1865, today.

 

This amendment was then used to pass the nation's first civil rights bill, with the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This made "black codes" invalid, which were laws put in place by states that governed the behaviour of black people, keeping them dependant on their former owners. The 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments together tried to establish equality for black Americans, but the struggle for their rights still continued into the 20^th century.

 

Want to find out more about this law that tried to end slavery once and for all? Visit https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/10/12/what-is-th-amendment-kanye-inspired-history-lesson/ for more information.