13th Amendment Essay

The 13th Amendment states, “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.”
In 1863, many people in the Northeast were beginning to believe that slavery was an unjust moral, and some were suggesting abolition. When the current president Abraham Lincoln realized this uprising was occuring, he decided to release his idea to the public, known as the Emancipation Proclamation. This was to try to avoid war. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed and failed to end slavery in 1863, many of the Northeastern states began to protest that slavery should be abolished in the United States.

Before the amendment was proposed, Rhode Island added to its state constitution the abolishment of slavery in 1776, not long after the state was founded. At the time, the states were trying to figure out how to avoid war, which led to the first proposal of the Thirteenth Amendment. There were two proposals in total, a suggestion to freeze the amendment, and a suggestion to abolish the amendment all together. Shortly after the change was suggested, however, a new amendment was released as a last attempt to plan to back away from war. The new amendment suggested that Congress would not be able to have the right to abolish slavery in attempt to steer clear of bloodshed. When the Civil War began, it became clear that the new amendment meant nothing to the constitution and that it did not impact the chances of war. After the Civil War ended, the second proposal was chosen to be ratified as an act of victory. The new Thirteenth Amendment said that all slavery would be abolished unless used as an act of punishment for a committed crime. While it was considered unusual, Lincoln took an active role in Congress, making sure his amendment had a smooth passage. He believed that the amendment was the final constitutional solution to abolishing slavery. The House passed the amendment in December of 1865 with a final ballot of 119 to 56 votes. Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in April, so he did not get to see his amendment ratified. There were numerous substantial parts of the process in creating the 13th Amendment effect that influenced many parts of American History and brought the conflict between the states and the Federal Government into the