Today in History: Slavery made illegal in USA
Just about 246 years after the first shipment of slaves arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, slavery was outlawed in America.
One-hundred-and-fifty-three years ago, the United States of America adopted the 13th Amendment into its Constitution, outlawing slavery in US territories.
In 1862, Congress annulled the fugitive slave laws, prohibited slavery in the US territories, and authorised President Abraham Lincoln to employ freed slaves in the army. Following the major Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September, Lincoln issued a warning of his intent to issue an emancipation proclamation for all states still in rebellion on New Year’s Day.
That day – 1 January, 1863 – Lincoln formally issued the Emancipation Proclamation, calling on the Union army to liberate all slaves in states still in rebellion as “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity”.
The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the Civil War from a war against secession into a war for “a new birth of freedom”, as Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address in 1863. This ideological change discouraged the intervention of France or England on the Confederacy’s behalf and enabled the Union to enlist the 180 000 African American soldiers and sailors who volunteered to fight between 1 January 1863 and the conclusion of the war.
As the Confederacy staggered toward defeat, Lincoln realised that the Emancipation Proclamation, a war measure, might have little constitutional authority once the war was over. The Republican Party subsequently introduced the 13th Amendment into Congress, and in April 1864, the necessary two-thirds of the overwhelmingly Republican Senate passed it.
However, the House of Representatives, featuring a higher proportion of Democrats, did not pass the amendment by a two-thirds majority until January 1865, three months before Confederate General Robert E Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
On 2 December 1865, Alabama became the 27th state to ratify the 13th Amendment, thus giving it the necessary three-fourths majority of states’ approval necessary to make it the law of the land.
On 18 December, the 13th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution – 246 years after the first shipload of captive Africans landed at Jamestown, Virginia, and were sold as slaves.
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