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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums152 years ago today, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment formally abolishing slavery
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery 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 11956.
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.
https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=40
...I consider the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments as absolutely integral to my citizenship in the U.S.. It's about much more than just 'civil rights.' As vital and important as those rights are to opportunity and well-being for individuals and groups of people, civil rights are, essentially, the guarantor of our citizenship.
Happy 13th Amendment Day!
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152 years ago today, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment formally abolishing slavery (Original Post)
bigtree
Dec 2017
OP
rogue emissary
(3,148 posts)1. K&R!
RandySF
(59,414 posts)2. Even that could be back on the table with that bunch in DC
bigtree
(86,008 posts)5. I was just running something like that through my mind
...recognizing that today's republican party may well be less capable of whatever magnanimity it took separatists and others to come together in the 1800's, how much aid and comfort the opposition to the subsequent amendments would find for their divisive politics in this political climate.
CrispyQ
(36,540 posts)3. I don't understand why the pro-choice groups don't advance this argument for their cause:
https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1031&context=facultyworkingpapers
Forced Labor, Revisited: The Thirteenth Amendment and Abortion
Andrew Koppelman
snip...
I. The basic argument
The Thirteenth Amendment reads as follows:
1. 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.
2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
My claim is that the amendment is violated by laws that prohibit abortion. When
women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to "involuntary
servitude" in violation of the amendment. Abortion prohibitions violate the
Amendment's guarantee of personal liberty, because forced pregnancy and childbirth, by
compelling the woman to serve the fetus, creates "that control by which the personal
service of one man [sic] is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit which is the
essence of involuntary servitude."6
Such laws violate the amendment's guarantee of
equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group
which, by virtue of a status of birth, is held subject to a special duty to serve others and
not themselves.
This argument makes available two responses to the standard defense of such
prohibitions, the claim that the fetus is a person. The first is that even if this is so, its
right to the continued aid of the woman does not follow. As Judith Jarvis Thomson
observes, "having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the
use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body -- even if one needs it for life itself."7
Giving fetuses a legal right to the continued use of their mothers'
bodies would be precisely what the Thirteenth Amendment forbids. The second response
is that since abortion prohibitions infringe on the fundamental right to be free of
involuntary servitude, the burden is on the state to show that the violation of this right is
justified. Since the thesis that the fetus is, or should at least be considered, a person
seems impossible to prove (or to refute), this is a burden that the state cannot carry. If we
are not certain that the fetus is a person, then the mere possibility that it might be is not
enough to justify violating women's Thirteenth Amendment rights by forcing them to be
mothers.
Forced Labor, Revisited: The Thirteenth Amendment and Abortion
Andrew Koppelman
snip...
I. The basic argument
The Thirteenth Amendment reads as follows:
1. 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.
2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
My claim is that the amendment is violated by laws that prohibit abortion. When
women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to "involuntary
servitude" in violation of the amendment. Abortion prohibitions violate the
Amendment's guarantee of personal liberty, because forced pregnancy and childbirth, by
compelling the woman to serve the fetus, creates "that control by which the personal
service of one man [sic] is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit which is the
essence of involuntary servitude."6
Such laws violate the amendment's guarantee of
equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group
which, by virtue of a status of birth, is held subject to a special duty to serve others and
not themselves.
This argument makes available two responses to the standard defense of such
prohibitions, the claim that the fetus is a person. The first is that even if this is so, its
right to the continued aid of the woman does not follow. As Judith Jarvis Thomson
observes, "having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the
use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person's body -- even if one needs it for life itself."7
Giving fetuses a legal right to the continued use of their mothers'
bodies would be precisely what the Thirteenth Amendment forbids. The second response
is that since abortion prohibitions infringe on the fundamental right to be free of
involuntary servitude, the burden is on the state to show that the violation of this right is
justified. Since the thesis that the fetus is, or should at least be considered, a person
seems impossible to prove (or to refute), this is a burden that the state cannot carry. If we
are not certain that the fetus is a person, then the mere possibility that it might be is not
enough to justify violating women's Thirteenth Amendment rights by forcing them to be
mothers.
Marcuse
(7,530 posts)4. Mississippi officially ratified the 13th Amendment in 2013.