To begin, the Thirteenth Amendment was very important because it was the beginning of equality throughout the United States. Even though the Thirteenth Amendment only prohibited slavery, it did create a spark in the future fire of equality and individual freedoms.
The first step in the journey of individual freedoms and equality began with the Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, wanted to pass the Thirteenth Amendment before the official end of the Civil War. He feared that the remaining Confederate States would wish to negotiate slavery as part of a peace treaty. To ensure that the Confederate states could not re-instate slavery, Lincoln decided to try and pass the Amendment before the end of the war. To do so he needed the support of the Democratic Party in which he went after the lame-ducks, those who would not be re-elected after the end of the war. He gained their vote and the Thirteenth
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The Confederates may have tried to re-enslave the people that were now considered free. Lincoln felt that his Emancipation Proclamation would be ignored by the courts because of when it was established. If the courts did not accept the President’s Proclamation then, the Confederate States may have been able to reinstitute slavery. If this happened, it would have been more difficult to pass the following Amendments that further instated equality. The Fourteenth Amendment passed three years after the Thirteenth. The Fourteenth Amendment applies to the states and ensures the privileges or immunities of an American citizen; the Due Process Clause, which prevents the states from denying person’s life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and the Equal Protection Clause, which precludes the states from deny a person equal protection of law (Hall