This article is part of the series: United States Constitution
Articles of the Constitution I ∙ II ∙ III ∙ IV ∙ V ∙ VI ∙ VII
Subsequent Amendments XI ∙ XII ∙ XIII ∙ XIV ∙ XV ∙ XVI XVII ∙ XVIII ∙ XIX ∙ XX ∙ XXI ∙ XXII XXIII ∙ XXIV ∙ XXV ∙ XXVI ∙ XXVII
Other countries ·  Law Portal  view • talk • edit 
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished, and continues to prohibit slavery and, with limited exceptions (those convicted of a crime), prohibits involuntary servitude. Prior to its ratification, slavery remained legal only in Delaware and Kentucky; everywhere else the slaves had been freed by state action and the federal government's Emancipation Proclamation. Abraham Lincoln (who had issued the Emancipation Proclamation) and others were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be seen as a temporary war measure, and so, besides freeing slaves in those two states where slavery was still legal, they supported the Amendment as a means to guarantee the permanent abolition of slavery. The amendment was originally co-authored and sponsored by Congressmen James Mitchell Ashley (Republican, Ohio) and James Falconer Wilson (Republican, Iowa) and Senator John B. Henderson (Democrat, Missouri). It was followed by the other Reconstruction Amendments, the Fourteenth (intended to protect the civil rights of former slaves) and Fifteenth (which banned racial restrictions on voting).

Text
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was proposed to the legislatures of the several states by the Thirty-eighth United States Congress, on January 31, 1865. The amendment was declared, in a proclamation of Secretary of State William Henry Seward, dated December 18, 1865, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-seven of the then thirty-six states. Although it was ratified by the necessary three-quarters of the states within a year of its proposal, its most recent ratification occurred in 1995 in Mississippi, which was the last of the thirty-six states in existence in 1865 to ratify it. The dates of ratification were:
Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states:

Illinois (February 1, 1865)
Rhode Island (February 2, 1865)
Michigan (February 3, 1865)
Maryland (February 3, 1865)
New York (February 3, 1865)
Pennsylvania (February 3, 1865)
West Virginia (February 3, 1865)
Missouri (February 6, 1865)
Maine (February 7, 1865)
Kansas (February 7, 1865)
Massachusetts (February 7, 1865)
Virginia (February 9, 1865)
Ohio (February 10, 1865)
Indiana (February 13, 1865)
Nevada (February 16, 1865)
Louisiana (February 17, 1865)
Minnesota (February 23, 1865)
Wisconsin (February 24, 1865)
Vermont (March 8, 1865)
Tennessee (April 7, 1865)
Arkansas (April 14, 1865)
Connecticut (May 4, 1865)
New Hampshire (July 1, 1865)
South Carolina (November 13, 1865)
Alabama (December 2, 1865)
North Carolina (December 4, 1865)
Georgia (December 6, 1865)
Oregon (December 8, 1865)
California (December 19, 1865)
Florida (December 28, 1865, reaffirmed on June 9, 1869)
Iowa (January 15, 1866)
New Jersey (January 23, 1866, after having rejected it on March 16, 1865)
Texas (February 18, 1870)
Delaware (February 12, 1901, after having rejected it on February 8, 1865)
Kentucky (March 18, 1976, after having rejected it on February 24, 1865)
Mississippi (March 16, 1995, after having rejected it on December 5, 1865) Interpretation and history
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Thirteenth Amendment does not prohibit mandatory military service in the United States (see 240 U.S. 328 (1916)).

Scope of legislation
Labor is defined as work of economic or financial value. Unfree labor, or labor not willingly given, is obtained in a number of ways:

causing or threatening to cause serious harm to any person;
physically restraining or threatening to physically restrain another person;
abusing or threatening to abuse the law or legal process;
knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating or possessing any actual or purported passport or other immigration document, or any other actual or purported government identification document, of another person;
blackmail;
causing or threatening to cause financial harm [using financial control over] to any person. Free versus Unfree Labor
Refers to a person in "debt servitude," or involuntary servitude tied to the payment of a debt. Compulsion to servitude includes the use of force, the threat of force, or the threat of legal coercion to compel a person to work against his or her will.
Refers to a person held by actual force, threats of force, or threats of legal coercion in a condition of slavery-- compulsory service or labor against his or her will. This also includes the condition in which people are compelled to work against their will by a "climate of fear" evoked by the use of force, the threat of force, or the threat of legal coercion (i.e., suffer legal consequences unless compliant with demands made upon them) which is sufficient to compel service against a person's will. The first U.S. Supreme Court case to uphold the ban against involuntary servitude was Bailey v. Alabama (1911).
Labor or service obtained by:

• by threats of serious harm or physical restraint;


• by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe they would suffer serious harm or physical restraint if they did not perform such labor or services:


• by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process,

Peonage
by threats of serious harm or physical restraint;
by means of any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe they would suffer serious harm or physical restraint if they did not perform such labor or services:
by means of the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process, Definitions of conditions addressed by 13th Amendment

Main article: Congressional power of enforcement Enforcement of 13th Amendment
Victims of human trafficking and other conditions of forced labour are commonly coerced by threat of legal actions to their detriment. A leading example is deportation of illegal immigrants. "The prospect of being forced to leave the United States, no matter how degrading the current living conditions, sometimes serves as a deterrent to reporting the situation to law enforcement."

Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 - Conspiracy Against Rights
Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 - Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law Threat of legal consequences

Titles of Nobility Amendment, approved by Congress in 1810, would have revoked the citizenship of anyone accepting a foreign title of nobility.
The Crittenden Compromise, a joint resolution that included six constitutional amendments that would protect slavery. At the time there were twelve amendments and one of the six could have become the thirteenth.
Corwin Amendment, approved by Congress in 1861 and ratified by two states, which would have forbidden any constitutional amendment that would interfere with slavery in a state. Notes

Herman Belz, Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era (1978)
Mitch Kachun, Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning in African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915 (2003)
C. Peter Ripley, Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, Donald Yacovone, Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation (1993)
Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of mavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (2001)
Model State Anti-trafficking Criminal Statute U.S. Dept of Justice