Amendment XIII
569
c . a m e n d m e n t x i i i (1865)
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.
This is the first of the three Civil War or Reconstruction Amendments.
Prior to its adoption, the States were free to decide for themselves whether
to permit or prohibit slavery within their borders. The Thirteenth Amendment deprives both the State and Federal governments of this power, and
forbids slavery and involuntary servitude. It does not prohibit compulsory labor and other forms of ‘‘involuntary servitude’’ associated with
the punishment and treatment of criminals.
Prolonged angry debates over slavery, in the Congress and elsewhere,
ended in violence—and in constitutional amendments that would produce striking political and social changes in America. By March 1861,
when the southern States alre