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Interesting US History
A Website Devoted to Interesting Events in U.S. History

 

 
 

 

ON THIS DAY IN UNITED STATES HISTORY

December 6, 1865

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
is Ratified, Making Slavery Illegal

On this day in 1865, the U.S. Congress Ratified the Thirteenth Amendment prohibiting involuntary servitude except for specific circumstances such as for those convicted of a crime.

At the time slavery was only legal in Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and New Jersey. Slavery had already been abolished in the other states by either state law or by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

Before the Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the last attempt to abolish slavery was from legislation proposed by John Quincy Adams in 1839 but it was never enacted.