News Thirteenth Amendment Ratified: On This Day, 1865 On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, was ratified : Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall...
Spotlight on: Primary Source Slave Patrol Contract, 1856 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+ In the 1800s, particularly after Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831, the legislatures of slave states passed increasingly strict laws governing the activities of enslaved and free African Americans and the interactions between whites and...