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(Detail)
Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Slavery;
In
Legislature of California, Sixteenth Session, 1865 & 1866
Yale
Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library |
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. —Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
On January 31, 1865—just four months before the Civil War ended with the surrender of the Confederate Army—the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill proposing to amend the United States Constitution. The next day, on February 1, President Lincoln signed the Joint Resolution Proposing the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, clearing the way for ratification of the amendment to abolish slavery.