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13th Amendment Importance

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The 13th amendment
The 13th amendment was very important and still is today. The thirteenth amendment was passed by congress on January 31, 1865 and ratified by the required number of states on December 6, 1865. On December 18, 1865, Secretary of State William H. Seward proclaimed its adoption. It was the first of the three reconstruction amendments adopted following the Civil War. The thirteenth amendment abolished slavery in all of the American states with exceptions of Maryland, West virginia, and East Tennessee which were not required to free their slaves. The 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 …show more content…
In 1864, congress debated several proposals that would prevent discrimination against blacks. It borrowed from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, when slavery was banned from the area North of the Ohio River. The senate passed the amendment in April of 1864.
A Republican victory in the 1864 presidential election would guarantee the success of the thirteenth amendment. The Republicans called for complete destruction of slavery, while the democrats favored restoration of states’ rights, which would include at least the possibility for the states to maintain slavery. Lincoln’s plan set in motion the events leading to the ratification of the amendment. The House passed the amendment in January 1865 and it was sent the to the states for approval. When the state of Georgia approved it on December 6, 1865, the institution of slavery no longer existed in the United States.
After the amendment being passed, factors such as black codes and selective enforcement continued to subject some blacks to involuntary labor, mostly in the south. The Southerners wished slaves to be counted as “persons” for congressional representation but northerners rejected because they were afraid that this would give the south too much power. Because of the fifth amendment which states “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”, slaves were treated as

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