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This sources reminds us that understanding the history of slavery is crucial to building a more just future. It’s a valuable resource that encourages reflection, education, and dialogue about a difficult but important part of our shared past.

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Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law - HeinOnline

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This HeinOnline database contains a multitude of essential materials that illuminate the history of slavery in America and the English-speaking world.

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The Reagan Library’s article explains how the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the U.S.

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Illustration celebrating the emancipation of African Americans with the Thirteenth Amendment, c. 1865 (Library of Congress)

Amendment Thirteen to the Constitution - the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments - was ratified on December 6, 1865. It forbids chattel slavery across the United States and in every territory under its control, except as a criminal punishment. The official text is written as follows:
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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Thirteenth Amendment was the final answer to the question surrounding the institution of slavery in the United States. Up until 1865, slavery was sparingly mentioned in the Constitution. Only the Three-Fifths Compromise, mentioned in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3, made any reference to the way enslaved persons were to be regarded by the federal government, that being as "three-fifths" of a fully free citizen. This was designed to handle the apportionment of the substantial enslaved population across the country, specifically for measuring the number of seats the individual states should have in the House of Representatives. The Fugitive Slave Cause, located in Article IV, Section 2, further asserted that a slave who was bound by the laws of their home state remained slaves wherever they went, even if they fled to a non-slavery state. This was reinforced in the 1857 Supreme Court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, which undermined the abolitionist's use of the Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery. Over the first few decades of the United States' existence, every state in the North had either eliminated slavery entirely, or provided ways for slaves to either be emancipated, or to emancipate themselves. No such offerings were given in the Southern states, where the largest amount of slave labor was concentrated in the country. The spread of slavery, as well as the opposing anti-slavery and abolitionist movements, made it the most pertinent American policy issue in the first half of the 19th century.

On September 22, 1862 - in the midst of the American Civil War - President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Known officially by the federal government as "Proclamation 95," the executive order officially rendered all 3.5 million African American slaves living in the secessionist Southern states as free. When these newly-freed slaves fled to the Union states or to American military forces, the slaves were automatically considered free. Additionally, the Proclamation authorized the enlistment of freed African Americans into the United States military. The significance of the Emancipation Proclamation was recognized both at the time of its creation, as well as in historical retrospect. Many historians have since interpreted that the Proclamation shifted the purpose of fighting the war, from only preserving the Union to the additional goal of the total destruction of slavery across the country. Although the Proclamation created a new population of freed peoples, it was designed as a wartime document. The question of if these newly-emancipated slaves would stay free after the Confederacy's defeat remained unanswered. Slavery was still in effect in four states (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri) that bordered the Union, and the Union-loyal Restored Government of Virginia - known today as the State of West Virginia - had only just started abolishing slavery by the time of the Proclamation's issue. President Lincoln and his cabinet were aware that the elimination of slavery had to be legally certified in order to last beyond the war.

From late 1863 to early 1864, several members of Congress proposed their own versions of a new amendment to abolish slavery. The scope and intensity of the provisions varied depending on the political affiliation of the politician, but they were eventually merged into one proposed amendment by the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 10, 1864. The amendment was subsequently passed through the Senate on April 8, 1864, and then the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. After its passage through Congress, the new amendment was submitted to the states for approval on February 1. On April 9 in Appomattox County, Virginia, Confederate General in Chief Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Commanding General of the Union Army Ulysses S. Grant. This led to a subsequent series of Confederate surrenders across the country, effectively bringing the American Civil War to an end after four years of fighting. President Lincoln's presidency saw the beginning and the end of the war, but he never lived to see the new amendment be ratified. Five days after the war ended, Lincoln was assassinated by stage actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson, Vice President to Abraham Lincoln, was subsequently inaugurated as the 17th President of the United States. His first major policy was to finish the amendment's ratification, as well as bringing the defeated Confederate states back into the Union. On December 6, 1865, the required twenty-seven out of the total thirty-three states ratified the amendment. Twelve days later, the new Thirteenth Amendment was officially certified and accepted into the Constitution. Eighty-nine years after the United States declared independence, chattel slavery was banned and declared illegal in the United States and in its territories.

In addition to the long-term impact of slavery being abolished, the Thirteenth Amendment also restricted several other forms of bound labor and servitude. Both indentured servitude and peonage, the former being a holdover from the colonial era while the latter grew more prominent in the postwar South, were also considered illegal by the new amendment. Peonage would not be officially considered unconstitutional until Bailey v. Alabama in 1911, however. The provision of "slavery" and "indentured servitude" being allowed only as a punishment for a crime has taken place in the centuries since the amendment's ratification, as both prison labor and temporary government, jury, and military service has taken place to varying extents in different states. Through the 20th and early 21st centuries, the enforcement clause in Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment has been used to fight racial discrimination in the private sector, public transportation, housing, and more recently in human trafficking. The Thirteenth Amendment was built to solve a problem that had remained unanswered since the country's founding, and its legacy has allowed for more extensive efforts to revise and review the actions of the past.

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Constitutional Amendments - Amendment 13 - "The Abolition of Slavery"

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Constitutional Amendments - Amendment 13 - "The Abolition of Slavery". Illustration celebrating the emancipation of African Americans with the Thirteenth Amendment, c.

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The University of Chicago article explains how the 13th Amendment’s “Except Clause” enables forced prison labor, which legal scholar Adam A. Davidson calls “administrative enslavement.”

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Rethinking prison labor under the 13th Amendment

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A UChicago legal scholar examines how forced labor persists in U.S. prisons—and what it will take to change the system

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Even after civil rights were gained, voter suppression still targets communities of color. The article shows how ID laws, and closed polling places make it harder for colored voters to cast votes. These examples like making people take a written test to vote and removing Sunday voting mirror old Jim Crow strategies, just formed around today's society. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965 arguably had even greater scope, as it rendered illegal numerous discriminatory barriers to effective political participation by African Americans and mandated federal review of all new voting regulations so that it would be possible to determine whether their use would perpetuate voting discrimination."

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Even though the 13th Amendment legally abolished slavery, it set up new battles including voting rights, citizenship and equality. Essentially, the 13th Amendment both aided people of color by freeing them form slavery but also created room for further social control. This article displays how racial systems can adapt to any solutions we provide, which was a big talking point in the first chapter of Jim Crows Laws. It stated, "Any candid observer of American racial history must acknowledge that racism is highly adaptable"(Jim Crow). This article is a clear example of how racism adapted to our solution. Society found ways to oppress people of color right after the 13th amendment, which gave rise to this new racial system.

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Northern Blacks and the Reconstruction Amendments – Genius of Freedom

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The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, sometimes known as the Reconstruction Amendments, were critical to providing African Americans with the rights and protections of citizenship. The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment established African Americans as equal citizens of the United States. This amendment overturned the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford case in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney had written that black Americans were not citizens and thus had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Finally, the 15th Amendment gave African American men the right to vote. Northern African Americans were tireless advocates for these amendments, fighting for equality on behalf of their recently freed brethren as well as for themselves.

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This law review article argues that the death penalty is a leftover from slavery. It uses the 13th Amendment to show how capital punishment still harms Black Americans by continuing racial discrimination, and inequality. Connecting the death penalty to slavery and lynching and introduces a test to prove it violates the Amendment’s promise of equality. "Since the nation’s founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn in new form, tailored to the needs and constraints of the time".

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Although the 13th amendment abolished slavery, it made an exception for criminal convicts which led to the practice of unlawful arrests that suppressed people of color. The article states, "The convict leasing system helped the act of arresting freed man and women by charging them with crimes"(CNN). This illustrates how techniques were developed to work around the amendments exception and maintain social injustices. These techniques are still used today such as "forced bondage" is used to suppress criminals. The first chapter of Jim Crow illustrates how the racial systems change to become more resilient to change, "Moreover, as the systems of control have evolved, they have become perfected, arguably more resilient to challenge, and thus capable of enduring for generations to

come."(Jim Crow Chapter 1). The CNN article is simply stating what new forms racial systems have taken. By disguising itself as justice against criminals, it enables the oppression of people of color.

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Opinion: The amendment that abolished slavery had a lasting flaw | CNN

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The 13th Amendment to the Constitution marks its 155th anniversary this week, and Peniel Joseph connects the dots from the amendment’s loophole for those convicted of a criminal offense to the toxic history of disenfranchising Black voters to the corrosive present of mass incarceration and police violence.

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"It is during this period of uncertainty that the backlash intensifies and a new form of racialized social control begins to take hold."

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"It is during this period of uncertainty that the backlash intensifies and a new form of racialized social control begins to take hold."

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The quote shows that when old systems of racial control weaken, backlash emerges, creating new ways to enforce racial hierarchy.

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Redlining / Potential Gentrification effect of the 13th Amendment 

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Redlining / Potential Gentrification effect of the 13th Amendment 

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This sources shows how laws and economic interests have kept this cycle going, affecting communities of color and shaping today’s prison system. Most Americans agree that change is needed, This is a reminder that clear we must rethink and reform a system that still burdens many while claiming to be just.

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13th amendment: The Economic Metamorphosis of Slavery | Columbia Business Law Review