December 1865Primary sourceWell documented
The Thirteenth Amendment Abolishes Slavery
On the timeline · around December 1865 ·
What happened
Ratified in December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, except as punishment for crime. It made permanent and universal what the Emancipation Proclamation had begun.
Why it matters
The Thirteenth Amendment ended more than two centuries of legal slavery in America — the greatest single act of liberation in the nation's history, and the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments that rewrote the meaning of American freedom.
Sources
- US National Archives. 13th Amendment (milestone document) (1865) · Primary source