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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The drafters of the Thirteenth Amendment drew upon earlier efforts to abolish slavery within various U.S. states and territories. Before the Civil War, several states had banned slavery in their jurisdictions through various means, including by adopting language in their state constitutions.1 In addition, Article 6 of the 1787 federal ordinance governing the Northwest Territory banned slavery in that territory.2 That ordinance, which the Framers of the Thirteenth Amendment drew upon directly, provided: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” 3
On January 13, 1864, more than a year before the end of the Civil War, Senator John Henderson introduced a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude.4 Representatives James Ashley and James Wilson had introduced similar resolutions in the House a month earlier.5 The Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported a joint resolution that drew upon these drafts.6
Early in 1864, the Senate debated the resolution proposing the Thirteenth Amendment. Senator Lyman Trumbull blamed slavery as the cause of the war and argued that the nation’s Founders intended for the practice to end.7 A constitutional amendment was necessary, he argued, because of uncertainty over Congress’s power to prohibit slavery in the United States through legislation, and the need to prevent future majorities in Congress or state legislatures from reinstituting the practice.8 The intent of the amendment, in his view, was to take the question of slavery “entirely away from the politics of the country.” 9 Proponents of the Thirteenth Amendment also argued passionately that slavery was wrong on moral grounds.10 Opponents of the Thirteenth Amendment generally argued that it would allow the federal government to intrude on property rights and other areas traditionally viewed as the exclusive domain of state authority.11
The Senate passed the joint resolution proposing the Thirteenth Amendment on April 8, 1864.12 The House considered the resolution in June 1864 but initially rejected it.13 In his State of the Union speech in December 1864, President Lincoln urged Congress to enact the joint resultion proposing the Thirteenth Amendment as soon as possible.14 After the Lincoln Administration engaged in a sustained effort to secure the necessary votes,15 the House passed the joint resolution on January 31, 1865.16
President Lincoln signed the joint resolution proposing the Thirteenth Amendment even though his signature was unnecessary for proposal or ratification of the Amendment.17 The Amendment was then submitted to the states for ratification.18
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Footnotes
- 1
- See e.g., Ohio Const. of 1802, art. VIII, § 2; Mich. Const. of 1835, art. XI, § 1; Wis. Const. of 1848, art. I, § 2. See also George Rutherglen, State Action, Private Action, and the Thirteenth Amendment, 94 Va. L. Rev. 1367, 1373 & n.23 (2008).
- 2
- An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States, North-west of the river Ohio, Libr. of Cong., https://www.loc.gov/resource/bdsdcc.22501/?st=gallery.
- 3
- Id. At least one commentator has noted, however, that as “interpreted and applied . . . the Ordinance effected less than a complete abolition of slavery.” George Rutherglen, State Action, Private Action, and the Thirteenth Amendment, 94 Va. L. Rev. 1367, 1373 (2008)
- 4
- Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 1st Sess. 145 (1864). Senator Charles Sumner unsuccessfully proposed a different formulation of the Thirteenth Amendment: “All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave; and the Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry this declaration into effect everywhere in the United States.” Id. at 1482.
- 5
- Id. at 19, 21 (1863).
- 6
- See id. at 1313 (1864).
- 7
- Id.
- 8
- Id. at 1314.
- 9
- Id.
- 10
- Id. at 1320.
- 11
- Id. at 1366.
- 12
- Id. at 1490.
- 13
- Id. at 2995.
- 14
- Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 2nd Sess. app’x at 3 (1864).
- 15
- See Rebecca E. Zietlow, James Ashley, the Great Strategist of the Thirteenth Amendment, 15 Geo. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 265, 300–01 (2017).
- 16
- Cong. Globe, 38th Cong., 2nd Sess. 531 (1865).
- 17
- 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865), Nat’l Archives, https://www.ourdocuments.gov/document_data/pdf/doc_040.pdf.
- 18
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A Resolution Submitting to the Legislatures of the Several States a Proposition to Amend the Constitution of the United States, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage? collId=llsl&fileName=013/llsl013.db&recNum=596.