BLACK HISTORY MONTH: THOUGHTS ON THE 13TH AMENDMENT

Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13TH Amendment abolished slavery (except as a condition of servitude) in the United States.

The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. The necessary number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “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 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery.

The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed the Congress. Although the Senate passed it in April 1864, the House did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure passage through congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119–56.

With the adoption of the 13th amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th amendment, along with the 14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.  (http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=40 )

The 13TH Amendment:

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Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of 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 the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

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Here are just a few thoughts on an amendment which abolished the legal enslavement of Americans.

 

The Thirteenth Amendment is the first of the Reconstruction Amendments.

On the other hand…………

…..the enactment of the 13TH Amendment legally continued the preservation of slavery.

With the passing of Black Codes, convict leasing, sharecropping—the re-enslavement of free for only ten seconds black people—was a continuance of slavery with the locking up in prisons so many black women, men, and even children.

In the end, the 13TH Amendment is just another way, via the United States Constitution to keep legalized the enslavement of black people. Just as lynching could no longer be used to kill black people, but, was instead legalized with the death penalty, so too has the 13TH Amendment been since its enactment a legal way to lock and keep enslaved the black people of this so-called nation.