Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

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Amendment XIII (the Thirteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution abolished slavery and, with the exception of allowing punishments for crimes, prohibits involuntary servitude. The article states:

Section 1. 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.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the Thirty-eighth Congress, on January 31, 1865.

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Ratification

The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. The dates of ratification were:

1.	Illinois	February 1, 1865
2.	Rhode Island	February 2, 1865
3.	Michigan	February 2, 1865
4.	Maryland	February 3, 1865
5.	New York	February 3, 1865
6.	Pennsylvania	February 3, 1865
7.	West Virginia	February 3, 1865
8.	Missouri	February 6, 1865
9.	Maine	February 7, 1865
10.	Kansas	February 7, 1865
11.	Massachusetts	February 7, 1865
12.	Virginia	February 9, 1865
13.	Ohio	February 10, 1865
14.	Indiana	February 13, 1865
15.	Nevada	February 16, 1865
16.	Louisiana	February 17, 1865
17.	Minnesota	February 23, 1865
18.	Wisconsin	February 24, 1865
19.	Vermont	March 9, 1865
20.	Tennessee	April 7, 1865
21.	Arkansas	April 14, 1865
22.	Connecticut	May 4, 1865
23.	New Hampshire	June 1, 1865
24.	South Carolina	November 13, 1865
25.	Alabama	December 2, 1865
26.	North Carolina	December 4, 1865
27.	Georgia	December 6, 1865

Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by:

28.	Oregon	December 8, 1865
29.	California	December 19, 1865
30.	Florida	December 28, 1865	(Florida again ratified on June 9, 1868, upon its adoption of a new constitution)
31.	Iowa	January 15, 1866
32.	New Jersey	January 23, 1866	(after having rejected the amendment on March 16, 1865)
33.	Texas	February 18, 1870
34.	Delaware	February 12, 1901	(after having rejected the amendment on February 8, 1865)
35.	Kentucky	March 18, 1976	(after having rejected the amendment on February 24, 1865)
36.	Mississippi	March 21, 1995	(after having rejected the amendment on December 4, 1865).

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Interpretation and history

This amendment completed the abolition of slavery, which had begun with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had only applied to slaves being held in areas that were in rebellion against the United States at the time of the Proclamation. Slaves in areas then controlled by the Union were not freed until this amendment took effect (However, some states where slavery was formerly legal had changed their constitutions in the meantime).

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States. Interestingly enough, the 13th Amendment makes the use of the "chain gang" or other methods of involuntary servitude by convicted criminals constitutional in the United States, as long as the methods of enforcing the servitude are not "cruel and unusual" (floggings, beatings, etc.).

The Thirteenth Amendment also prohibits specific performance as a judicial remedy for violations of contracts for personal services such as employment contracts.

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