Jan. 31, 1865 | House Passes 13th Amendment, Abolishing Slavery

By The Learning Network
Harper’s Weekly/Library of Congress The cover of the Feb. 18, 1865, Harper’s Weekly depicted the scene in the House of Representatives on the passage of the amendment to abolish slavery.
Historic Headlines

Learn about key events in history and their connections to today.

On Jan. 31, 1865, the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. The amendment, which would become the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, read, “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 next day, The New York Times described the scene in the House: “When the presiding officer announced that the resolution was agreed to by yeas 119, nays 56, the enthusiasm of all present, save a few disappointed politicians, knew no bounds, and for several moments the scene was grand and impressive beyond description. No attempt was made to suppress the applause which came from all sides, every one feeling that the occasion justified the fullest expression of approbation and joy.”

The 13th Amendment was passed to reinforce the Emancipation Proclamation, a proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863, that freed slaves in territory that was rebelling against the Union in the Civil War. It did not apply to the roughly 800,000 slaves in border states and other exempted areas and could not be enforced to the more than three million slaves in rebel territory. Additionally, it was a war measure that was unlikely to survive constitutional challenges. Therefore, Lincoln instructed the antislavery Radical Republicans in Congress to pass a constitutional amendment.

The Senate passed the amendment in April 1864. Lincoln added the amendment to the Republican Party’s platform for the 1864 election and pushed for the House to pass it after his re-election.

Following its passage, the amendment was sent to the states for ratification, a process included the 11 states of the Confederacy. Four Confederate states ratified the amendment before the end of the Civil War: Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee ratified it through governments put in place by Lincoln’s Reconstruction policy, while Virginia ratified it through a minority legislature that had been created after its secession. Ratification was completed on Dec. 6, 1865, when Georgia became the 27th state to ratify the amendment.

Connect to Today:
The 13th Amendment was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments passed from 1865 to 1870. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship, due process and equal protection to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. The 15th Amendment guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on race.

The 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to any person born on U.S. soil has come under fire in recent years from a number of conservative legislators who argue that children of illegal immigrants born here should not be granted citizenship. Last year, legislators from five states drafted measures to challenge the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision.

Given its history and the context of the current debate on citizenship, what are your thoughts on the 14th Amendment? In your opinion, should citizenship remain the right of everyone born in the United States? Why or why not?

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Annie C January 31, 2012 · 11:43 am

I believe anyone born here in the US should be able to become a legal citizen because that is what our 14th amendment states and we as a country should not try to change our amendments EVER!!!! This is our 14th amendment and we should stand by it.

Jedi Eye Rock November 22, 2012 · 4:51 am

It seems the 13th Amendment is flawed as incarceration and the public and now fearfully the private prison industry is the fastest growing industry in America which seems to be the new slavery and tyranny of the poor, black (50% of black men) and latino’s is very high. The drug war also seems to be encroaching and eroding our freedoms and rights as well in that prohibition is against what America stood is all about as stated by Alexander Hamilton. And lastly economic slavery/bondage by multinational corporations who makes tons of money by shipping jobs overseas and offer low wage jobs and who offer many part time positons as to avoid providing healthcare.

Paul Northey November 26, 2012 · 1:04 am

Until an Amendment passes to overturn the 14th, it is the law of the land…
Due process for all, equal protection for all, who would argue with that? Bin Laden? Hitler? Michele Bachmann? I digress.

sheila ferrand December 3, 2012 · 2:14 pm

I think any child born in the us should have at least one parent
that is a citizen I believe the 14th was basicly made for slaves
because they were considered property . we have immigration
laws on the bookes we should use them.

Ariel Hessing December 17, 2012 · 5:04 pm

Spielberg’s film, ‘Lincoln’, is actually fairly accurate. Lincoln tried very hard to reunite the Union, and once reunification became an inevitability, he then tried quite hard to gain a legal standard for the abolition of slavery that would actually hold up in peace time and for all time. While it is true that one year into the war, when the Union was losing every battle, Lincoln stated publicly that the Union would take back the southern states “slaves, chains and all”, by the third year of the war, when the Union was solidifying an eventual victory by taking Vicksburg (thereby gaining control of the Mississippi River), and at the same time turning back the Confederates at Gettysburg, Lincoln no longer had any intention of permitting reunification before he gained the abolition of slavery. He wanted to get it done before bringing the southern states back into the Union, and he did get it done, period. While it is true that before the war Lincoln had mentioned sending all the slaves to English speaking Liberia on the African continent or even a completely segregated U.S. society as possible solutions to the slavery issue, these quickly fell away once he was elected, and it is highly unlikely that he would have ever gotten behind such an arrangement in any event.

Eric Masden January 17, 2013 · 7:28 pm

The United States were founded on the basis of immigrants searching for a different path. Everyone’s family history contains a person being born to immigrant parents. We all have come from that situation. In the times of it’s creation, I don’t believe being an immigrant was viewed or thought of as that uncommon. or unfavorable as it is now. The time was much closer to our roots and our memories. It was an acceptable practice then, and thus should be an acceptable practice now. These documents were written to stand the tests of time by great men. The fact that they hold true is the basis of our merit as a country. Then, poeple were not turned away or the course of events of which wwe know as The History of the United States would cease to exist. It should stand true.