The Thirteenth Amendment Abolishes Slavery in the United States
Ratified in December 1865, the amendment finishes constitutionally what the Emancipation Proclamation began by military order
Quick facts
- Passed by Congress
- January 31, 1865
- Ratified
- December 6, 1865
- Certified
- December 18, 1865, by Secretary of State William Seward
What happened
Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution on January 31, 1865, and the required three-fourths of state legislatures ratified it by December 6, 1865, formally abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States except as punishment for a crime. Lincoln had recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive war order that applied only to Confederate territory, could not permanently guarantee abolition on its own and pushed for a constitutional amendment that would remove the question from the reach of any future court, president, or peace settlement between North and South. Secretary of State William Seward formally certified the amendment's ratification to the world on December 18, 1865.
Why it matters
The Thirteenth Amendment closed the legal gap the Emancipation Proclamation had left open, since that order applied only to rebel territory and rested on wartime military authority rather than permanent law. It is the constitutional act that actually ended slavery in the United States, and the exception it carved out for criminal punishment would become the legal foundation later exploited by convict leasing and mass incarceration.
How we know
The National Archives holds the original enrolled Thirteenth Amendment and the state ratification documents that certified its adoption, which its Milestone Documents collection reproduces alongside a summary of the ratification timeline.
Sources
- National Archives. 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865) · Primary source (author-declared)archives.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Abraham Lincoln and the Passage of the Thirteenth Amendment · Reputable sourcegilderlehrman.org · The domain "gilderlehrman.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Related timelines
- The American Civil War → · The Thirteenth Amendment is the constitutional endpoint of the war's transformation into a fight over slavery, converting Lincoln's wartime proclamation into permanent law.