Short-answer box
The amendment that abolished slavery in the United States is the 13th Amendment. Congress passed it on January 31, 1865, and the states completed ratification on December 6, 1865, when Georgia became the 27th of the then 36 states to approve it. Secretary of State William Seward certified the result on December 18, 1865.
Its first section bans slavery and involuntary servitude everywhere under United States jurisdiction, with one exception: “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Its second section gives Congress power to enforce the ban by appropriate legislation. The rest of this article gives the full text, explains how the amendment passed Congress and won ratification, examines the punishment exception, and traces what the amendment has meant in law since 1865.
The text of the amendment
The 13th Amendment is short. It has two sections, and both are worth reading in full, because almost every later argument about the amendment turns on its exact words.
Section 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section 1 does three things at once. First, it bans two things, not one: slavery and involuntary servitude. Involuntary servitude is the broader term. It covers forced labor in general, not only the chattel slavery system of the prewar South, and that breadth is why courts later applied the amendment to peonage, the practice of compelling labor to repay a debt. Second, it states one exception, for punishment after a person has been duly convicted of a crime. That exception clause is examined in its own section below, because it has shaped more than a century of argument. Third, it sets the reach of the ban: the United States and any place subject to its jurisdiction. The ban did not depend on whether a state had been in rebellion, and it did not depend on whether Union armies had reached a particular town.
Section 2 is an enforcement clause. It gives Congress power to pass laws that make the ban real. The Library of Congress notes two further points about how the amendment works. It is self-executing, which means its ban took effect when ratification was completed, without Congress needing to pass another law first. And unlike most constitutional rights, which restrain government action, the 13th Amendment’s ban applies directly to private individuals as well as to government actors. That reach is what later allowed Congress and the courts to attack forced labor imposed by private employers, not only by states.
One more feature of the text deserves notice. The original Constitution of 1787 never used the word slavery. It spoke of “other persons” and of persons “held to service or labor.” The 13th Amendment names the institution directly, in order to ban it.
This article explains history and law in general terms. It is not legal advice.
Why an amendment was needed at all
Before 1865, slavery was governed mainly by state law, while the federal Constitution protected it indirectly. The Fugitive Slave Clause required the return of people who escaped from slavery, and the Three-Fifths Clause counted three-fifths of an enslaved population when apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. A federal law alone could not override that structure in every state at once, and a wartime order could not do it permanently.
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued January 1, 1863, showed both the power and the limits of executive action. As a wartime measure, it applied to Confederate-held territory in rebellion. It did not apply to the loyal border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, nor to areas already under Union control, and it depended on Union victory for enforcement. Lincoln recognized that the proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment to guarantee abolition permanently, and the National Archives records that recognition as the reason the amendment followed.
An amendment solved three problems at once. It bound every state at the same time, whatever its wartime loyalties. It could not be undone by a later Congress or by a single state legislature. And it put the ban in the Constitution itself, above ordinary law. That is why the question “which amendment abolished slavery” has a constitutional answer rather than a statutory one, and why the amendment, not the proclamation, is the legal instrument that ended slavery nationwide.
How it passed Congress
The amendment reached Congress in stages. Beginning in late 1863, several members of Congress introduced proposals to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment, including proposals from James Mitchell Ashley, James F. Wilson, John B. Henderson, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens. Senator Lyman Trumbull merged several versions into one text, and the Senate passed it on April 8, 1864.
The House was harder. A vote on June 15, 1864 fell thirteen votes short of the required two-thirds majority. Lincoln then made the amendment a central part of his 1864 reelection campaign, insisting that it be added to the Republican Party platform. He won reelection on November 8, 1864, defeating General George B. McClellan, and he treated the result as a mandate for abolition. He urged the outgoing Congress to act before its term ended, and his administration spent more than two months pressing representatives for support.
The House passed the amendment on January 31, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56, two votes more than the constitutionally required two-thirds majority. Lincoln approved the joint resolution on February 1, 1865, sending it to the states for ratification, and it appears officially in volume 13 of the Statutes at Large under the date of February 1, 1865. Constitutional amendments are not sent to the president for signature or veto in the ordinary legislative sense, so his approval was the formal step that transmitted the proposal to the states, backed by his public support. Lincoln did not live to see ratification completed. He was assassinated on April 14, 1865.
Ratification, state by state
Under Article V of the Constitution, an amendment becomes part of the Constitution when three-fourths of the states ratify it. In 1865 there were 36 states, so ratification required 27.
Illinois acted first, on February 1, 1865, the same day Lincoln approved the joint resolution. Seventeen more states followed by the end of February 1865, a fast start that reflected the amendment’s support in the North and in the border states that had already moved against slavery. By the summer of 1865, 23 states had ratified, and then the process stalled. The remaining votes had to come from states that had been in rebellion, and those states had to be brought back into the constitutional process first.
President Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, pressed southern states to ratify as a condition of returning to the Union. The Census Bureau’s history of the amendment notes that Johnson paired that pressure with assurances that states would keep control over the rights of freed people, and several southern states voted for the amendment while declaring that they were not surrendering rights to the federal government. Those declarations did not change the legal effect of their votes.
The final sequence came in the fall of 1865. South Carolina ratified on November 13. Alabama followed on December 2, and North Carolina on December 4. Georgia ratified on December 6, 1865, becoming the 27th state and completing the constitutional threshold. Secretary of State William Seward certified the result on December 18, 1865, formally proclaiming the amendment part of the Constitution.
Two dates therefore appear in reference works, and both are correct for different questions. December 6, 1865 is the date ratification was completed, and it is the standard answer to when the amendment was ratified. December 18, 1865 is the date the federal government certified the result. The amendment bound the whole country from the completion of ratification, whatever any individual state did afterward.
Later ratifications were symbolic rather than legally necessary, but they complete the record. Oregon and California ratified in December 1865. Florida ratified on December 28, 1865, and reaffirmed its ratification in 1868. Iowa ratified in January 1866, and New Jersey on January 23, 1866, after having rejected the amendment on March 16, 1865. Texas ratified in February 1870. Delaware ratified on February 12, 1901, after having rejected the amendment in February 1865. Kentucky ratified on March 18, 1976, after having rejected it in February 1865. Mississippi, which had rejected the amendment in December 1865, voted to ratify on March 16, 1995. That vote was not officially recorded until February 7, 2013, after the required paperwork was filed with the federal government on January 30, 2013, when two residents discovered in late 2012 that the filing had never been made. With that filing, every state that had existed in 1865 had finally ratified.
The punishment exception
The most debated words in the amendment are five: “except as a punishment for crime.” Section 1 bans slavery and involuntary servitude, but it leaves forced labor imposed as criminal punishment, after a person has been duly convicted, outside the ban. Courts have treated that question as settled where labor follows conviction through due process. The argument ever since has been about what the exception permitted in practice.
In the postwar South, the exception became the legal foundation for convict leasing. States passed Black Codes that criminalized vague offenses such as loitering and vagrancy, and those laws fell overwhelmingly on newly freed Black people. Convicted people were then leased to private businesses, including railroad companies, mining operations, and plantation owners, who paid the state a fee and received labor in return. Duke University’s exhibit on the amendment states the point directly: the exception clause “provided a loophole that allowed forms of enslavement to continue within the American prison system.” Convict leasing persisted in parts of the South into the late 1920s, even as courts struck down some of its worst abuses.
The modern debate over the exception is presented here without taking a side, because it remains an open political and legal argument. Critics of the exception argue that it still permits forced prison labor today and should be removed from the Constitution. Others argue that prison work programs serve rehabilitation and restitution, and that removing the clause would disrupt prison operations. At the state level, voters have acted on the question directly. Colorado became the first state to remove a punishment exception from its own constitution, in 2018. Nebraska and Utah followed in 2020, and voters in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont approved similar changes in 2022. Nevada followed in 2024. Louisiana voters rejected a similar measure in 2022, largely over concerns about the ballot wording rather than the underlying policy, and California voters rejected Proposition 6 in 2024. At the federal level, a joint resolution known as the Abolition Amendment, which would strike the punishment exception from the 13th Amendment entirely, was reintroduced in Congress in June 2023 with companion legislation in the Senate, but it has not been adopted. Like any constitutional amendment, it would need two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states.
What the amendment changed in law
The 13th Amendment was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments. The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, addressed citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law. The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, protected the right to vote against denial on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The sequence matters: the 13th Amendment made people free, the 14th made them citizens, and the 15th protected their vote. The 13th Amendment alone did not deliver citizenship, voting rights, or equality, and it did not end discrimination. After the war, several states passed Black Codes denying freed people equal rights, including the rights to vote, hold property, and use public facilities, which is why Congress followed with civil rights legislation and the two later amendments.
The amendment also rewrote two parts of the original Constitution. Its ratification effectively negated the Fugitive Slave Clause, which had allowed an enslaver to seize and repossess an enslaved person in another state regardless of that state’s laws, and the Three-Fifths Clause, which had counted three-fifths of an enslaved population for apportioning House seats and taxes.
Section 2 gave Congress a tool it used quickly. Beginning in 1866, Congress enacted civil rights legislation to ensure that people of all races would have equal rights to make and enforce contracts and hold property. Congress passed the Peonage Act of 1867, which made it a federal crime to hold another person in peonage, and the Supreme Court upheld that act in Clyatt v. United States in 1905. In Bailey v. Alabama in 1911, the Court struck down an Alabama law that made it a crime to enter a labor contract, take an advance payment, and then quit without just cause, holding that the law effectively compelled labor to repay a debt and therefore violated the 13th Amendment and federal anti-peonage law. In United States v. Reynolds in 1914, the Court struck down Alabama’s criminal surety system, under which a third party paid a convicted person’s fine in exchange for a binding agreement to labor. In United States v. Kozminski in 1988, the Court defined involuntary servitude for federal criminal law as work compelled by physical restraint, physical injury, or coercion through law or legal process.
The most consequential later use of Section 2 came in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. in 1968. The Supreme Court held that a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, now codified at 42 U.S.C. 1982, bars all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property, and that the statute is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to enforce the 13th Amendment. The Court held that Congress has the power to determine what counts as the “badges and incidents of slavery” and to legislate against them, overruling its earlier, narrower decision in Hodges v. United States from 1906. The Library of Congress notes that the precise scope of Congress’s 13th Amendment power remains unclear in part, even after Jones. The amendment has also been invoked to support laws against modern forms of slavery, such as sex trafficking, though that application is debated and is stated here as an invocation rather than a settled rule.
Frequently asked questions
Which amendment abolished slavery?
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Congress passed it on January 31, 1865, and the states ratified it on December 6, 1865.
What does the 13th Amendment actually say?
Section 1 states: “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.” Section 2 states: “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
When was the 13th Amendment ratified?
Ratification was completed on December 6, 1865, when Georgia became the 27th of the then 36 states to approve it. Secretary of State William Seward certified the result on December 18, 1865. December 6 is the standard ratification date, and December 18 is the certification date.
Did the 13th Amendment free everyone immediately?
As a matter of law, the amendment banned slavery throughout the United States when ratification was completed on December 6, 1865. In Kentucky and Delaware, where slavery had survived the war, the amendment finally ended it in December 1865. How quickly freedom reached individual people in practice depended on enforcement in each place, which is a separate story from the amendment itself.
What is the punishment exception in the 13th Amendment?
It is the clause “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” It means forced labor imposed as criminal punishment after due conviction is not banned by Section 1. Historians connect the clause to convict leasing in the postwar South, and it remains the subject of modern debate, including state ballot measures and a proposed federal Abolition Amendment that would remove it.
Why did Mississippi ratify the amendment in 1995?
Mississippi rejected the amendment in December 1865 and did not vote to ratify it until March 16, 1995. That vote was symbolic, because the amendment had been binding law nationwide since 1865. The 1995 vote was not officially recorded until February 7, 2013, after the required paperwork was filed on January 30, 2013, when two residents discovered in late 2012 that the filing had never been made.
Does the 13th Amendment apply to private employers, or only to the government?
It applies to both. Unlike most constitutional rights, which restrain government action, the 13th Amendment’s ban on slavery and involuntary servitude reaches private conduct as well. That is why courts could strike down peonage imposed by private employers and why Congress could legislate against private racial discrimination as a badge or incident of slavery.
Sources & references
- U.S. National Archives, "13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)." Opened and read October 25, 2026. Passage by Congress on January 31, 1865; House vote of 119 to 56; Lincoln's approval of the joint resolution on February 1, 1865; ratification on December 6, 1865; amendment text.
- Library of Congress, Constitution Annotated, "Overview of the Thirteenth Amendment, Abolition of Slavery." Opened and read October 25, 2026. Amendment text; first of the three Reconstruction Amendments; direct application to private individuals; self-executing effect; negation of the Fugitive Slave Clause and the Three-Fifths Clause; Section 2 enforcement power and the badges and incidents doctrine; Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. as the turning point in enforcement scope.
- Library of Congress, Constitution Annotated, "Civil War Amendments (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments)." Opened and read October 25, 2026. Proposal dates (Senate April 8, 1864; House January 31, 1865); 13 Stat. 567 dated February 1, 1865; Georgia as the 27th ratifying state on December 6, 1865; Seward's certification on December 18, 1865; full state ratification date list; Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865; Johnson's pressure on southern states.
- Duke University Library Exhibits, "The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865)." Opened and read October 25, 2026. Senate passage April 8, 1864; House passage January 31, 1865; ratification by 27 of 36 states on December 6, 1865; the exception clause as a loophole that allowed forms of enslavement to continue within the American prison system.
- U.S. Census Bureau, "December 2025: Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." Opened and read October 25, 2026. House vote falling thirteen votes short on June 15, 1864; Lincoln's 1864 campaign and reelection; more than two months of pressure before the January 31, 1865 House vote; Illinois first to ratify on February 1, 1865, with 17 more states by the end of February; Johnson's assurances to southern states; Mississippi as the last state to ratify, on March 16, 1995.
- Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968), case summary. Opened and read October 25, 2026. Holding that 42 U.S.C. 1982 bars private as well as public racial discrimination in property sale and rental as a valid exercise of 13th Amendment enforcement power; overruling of Hodges v. United States.
- Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219 (1911), case summary. Opened and read October 25, 2026. Alabama peonage law struck down as violating the 13th Amendment and federal anti-peonage law; contract details and the prima facie evidence rule.
- LegalClarity, "When Did Mississippi Ratify the 13th Amendment?" Opened and read October 25, 2026. Mississippi's December 1865 rejection; March 16, 1995 ratification vote; paperwork filed January 30, 2013; official recording on February 7, 2013.
- LegalClarity, "The 13th Amendment Loophole That Still Allows Prison Labor." Opened and read October 25, 2026. Convict leasing and Black Codes; United States v. Reynolds (1914); United States v. Kozminski (1988); state ballot measures from Colorado (2018) through Nevada (2024); Louisiana and California rejections; the federal Abolition Amendment proposal.
