Th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution \"Neither

Th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

"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." (13 Amendment, Article 1, "U.S. Constitution")

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 "Emancipation Proclamation" stated "that all person's held as slaves' within the rebellious states 'are, and henceforward shall be free.'" ("Featured Documents") Many claim that Lincoln's real motivation in freeing the slaves was to politically outmaneuver the south internationally; to make the war about slavery thus keeping the Europeans from supporting the South. However, Lincoln's support of, and the adoption of the 13th amendment in 1865, seems to prove this wrong; Lincoln's real motivation was the end of slavery in the United States. But Lincoln issued his "Emancipation Proclamation" in the middle of a war, using his emergency war powers, and it was limited to states currently rebelling. This meant that slavery was still technically legal in border states who had allowed slavery before the war, but did not rebel against the Union; states like Maryland and Kentucky.

Lincoln was troubled by the fact that his "Emancipation Proclamation" did not extend to these states, as well as was fearful that it would not be considered constitutional because of the circumstances in which it was ordered. Could an emergency war action be legal after the war? Lincoln thought that his political opponents would use this argument to nullify the "Emancipation Proclamation," and thus re-institute slavery in the United States. Lincoln also wanted to outlaw slavery in those few states which had slipped through the proclamation. Therefore, Abraham Lincoln decided that an amendment to the Constitution of the United States was the best was to insure that slavery was forever outlawed everywhere in the United States.

On December 6th 1865, the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States was officially adopted. This was the first of the "Reconstruction Amendments" which were design to fundamentally change the social landscape of America. In a period of just five years two other amendments would follow which included the due process and equal protection clauses in the 14th Amendment as well as the voting rights included in the 15th.

But these advances were fleeting as the withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1887 left the former slaves, and their recently won fundamental American rights, vulnerable to their former masters. While those who supported racist policies could not get back their former property, they could make life as difficult as possible for the former slaves. An example being the case of Plessy v Ferguson, along with a series of other court rulings passed by the U.S. Supreme and state courts, enacted what became known as Jim Crow segregation laws. These laws claimed to keep the races "separate but equal," but instead created a two tiered system which denied African-Americans their basic rights. ("Plessy vs. Ferguson")

This two-tiered system officially remained in place until the 1950's and 1960's, when a more socially conscious society was faced with the "Civil Rights Movement." America was forced to confront the fact that the civil rights of a portion of it's people had still been denied a century after constitutional amendments had guaranteed these rights. In another series of legal decisions, the U.S. Supreme court stuck down the "Jim Crow" laws which had kept blacks and whites separated from each other. (Feagin) The Supreme Court also guaranteed that African-Americans received the same rights and privileges as other members of American society, without regard to race.

But this was not the end of it. The 13th amendment gave rise to the 14th and 15th amendments, giving former slaves the same rights afforded to all Americans. However, the full exercise of these rights had to wait one hundred years until the "Civil Rights Movement" of the 1950's and 1960's. But then the court rulings which guaranteed African-Americans the same rights as whites now became the inspiration for women to demand the same rights as men. Women were inspired to demand the right to be able to work at the same jobs as men, at the same pay, with the same respect. And other minority groups then became inspired as well, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans and so on. Each group demanded that they too receive the same rights and privileges that whites had enjoyed for so long.