13th Amendment Essay

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The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was the first of the three Reconstruction Era Amendments to be signed on 8 April 1864 by the Senate and incorporated throughout the Unites States on 6 December 1865. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States. It is vital to identify the conditions involving laws, opportunities, migration, racism. Following the Emancipation of Proclamation that set slaves free and the enactment of the 13th Amendment emerged the Black Codes. Black Codes were laws passed in the Southern states that placed severe restrictions/limitations on African Americans. Furthermore, these laws were designed to restrict free blacks activity and ensure their availability as a labor force. The North was appalled by the black codes and argued that the black codes violated the principles behind the 13th amendment. This led to the enactment of the 14th amendment that afforded African Americans the same citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws to former slaves. Black Codes limited the opportunities for blacks in …show more content…

Ironically, thousands of black people were trapped in peonage or labored as sharecroppers and renters, indebted to white landlords and merchants (Hine, Hine and Harrold). Also, most black people remained poverty stricken sharecroppers and renters on impoverished, white-owned land (Hine, Hine and Harrold). What made matters even worse was the fact African Americans were poorly educated and subjected to harsh living conditions. According to W.E.B. Du Bois, slavery was not abolished after the Thirteenth Amendment and that 4 million “freedmen” were still working at the same plantations that they were once working as slaves for the same wages and were to slave codes modified by only name (Du Bois). These conditions and opportunities led many African Americans to migrate within the