02/03/2025
On January 31, 1865, 160 years ago, the United States House of Representatives, with the full support of the Lincoln administration, passed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 119-56. The controversial anti-slavery amendment barely achieved the necessary two-thirds majority. It had already passed the Senate (38-6) the year before and now went to the states for ratification:
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.
Three-quarters of all the states would have to ratify the amendment to make it law, including several former Confederate states as part of their restoration to the Union. Hence, full ratification could not happen until after the Civil War. On December 6, 1865, Georgia became the 27th state to do so, bringing the legal institution of chattel slavery to an end throughout the United States. By this point, war-time emancipation and individual state action had ended slavery in every state except the border states of Kentucky and Delaware.
Image: Scene in the U.S. House of Representatives on the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, January 31, 1865, front cover of Harper's Weekly, published February 18, 1865, shows the interior of the House chamber with hundreds of individuals, Congressmen, and spectators cheering and celebrating the historic act. (Library of Congress).
