Assignment 5: Virtual Amendment Project

Introduction & text

The XIII Amendment to the U.S: Constitutions officially abolished and continues to abolish slavery, but with some limited objection to people who have been found guilty of certain crimes. This amendment prohibits also forced labor. Before its emanation, slavery was still active and legal in some States, for example Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and New Jersey. However Abraham Lincoln and other U.S. politicians were worried that the amendment would be seen as a measure because of the war, so, they supported amendment to ensure the permanent abolition of slavery. The politicians who proposed the amendment were two republicans and a democratic, they were James Mitchell Ashley, James Falconer Wilson and John B. Henderson, the latter was a senator while the other two were representatives.

The text of the XIII Amendment:

• 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.

Introduction

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text

History of the approval process

XIII Amendment was approved after about sixty years from the last amendment approved. This amendment changed political ideas: before it, most of the laws passed by Congress had protected slavery, but this document was intended to change the course of history. On December 14, 1863, James Mitchell Ashley proposed a provision to support an amendment that would abolish slavery throughout the United States; James Falconer Wilson also made a similar proposal. Congress and public opinion had begun to become aware of this enormous problem afflicting the United States. Precisely because of this awareness the number of proposals continued to grow, the commission submitted to the Senate an amendment that brought together the proposals of Ashley, Wilson and Henderson. The Senate approved the amendment on April 8, 1864, with 36 votes in favor and 6 against. The Senate immediately approved the amendment, the House of Representatives initially rejected it, only after the intervention of President Lincoln himself that the House approved the document. The approval came in January 1865 with 119 votes in favor, 56 against and 8 abstentions. Secretary of State William Henry Seward formalized the ratification on December 18, 1865. All the remaining slaves in the USA, about 40,000, mostly concentrated in Kentucky, were then released

History of the approval process

Impacts and Effects

This amendment did not stop people from finding subterfuges. One of the many examples we can cite of those is share-cropping. It consisted in keeping in percentage debt families to prevent them from leaving the service of the plantation.

In the 13th Amendment we could find written that slavery is not prohibited to people who have been found guilty of certain crimes. This particular statement led to some ridiculous laws that criminalized all sorts of trivial acts mostly against black people. They could then became legal slaves.

We can find the discounting of this practice even today in different ways and in a less obvious form. Those laws were applied disproportionately against black people, to arrest and sentence them. Because all of this black people, unfortunately, had for example difficulties in getting a job, which drives them back to crime; we can find the roots of all in racism.

Impacts and Effects

Cites resources

Texts:

• https://si.next.agilixbuzz.com/student/81838694/activity/d2l_116140_FOLDER

• Contributor: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Article Title: Thirteenth Amendment
• Website Name: Encyclopædia Britannica
• Publisher: Encyclopædia Britannica, inc
• Date Published: December 12, 2016
• URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirteenth-Amendment
• Access Date: October 20, 2018

• Article Title: 13th Amendment
• Author: History.com Editors
• Website Name: HISTORY
• URL: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/thirteenth-amendment
• Access Date: October 20, 2018
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 21, 2018
• Original Published Date: November 9, 2009

Images: https://images.google.com

Cites resources