Existing comment:
Scene in the House on the Passage of the Proposition to Amend the Constitution, January 31, 1865
Harper's Weekly, February 18, 1865
Without a constitutional amendment, there was no guarantee that Lincoln's emancipation proclamation would be upheld by the courts or not reversed by a later president. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery as a legal institution. By the time it was ratified in December 1865, slavery had already been eliminated by the Emancipation Proclamation or state action everywhere except in Delaware and Kentucky. |