Thirteenth Amendment - Abolition of Slavery
Slavery and involuntary servitude are illegal except as punishment for crime. The [Senate passed it 38–6 on April 8, 1864](https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/senate-passes-the-thirteenth-amendment.htm). The [House passed it 119–56 on January 31, 1865](https://guides.loc.gov/13th-amendment/digital-collections). Georgia ratified it on [December 6, 1865](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution), making it law.
Original Text
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.
Slavery is abolished everywhere in the United States. No person can be held as property or compelled to work through the threat of force—with one exception: convicted criminals can be required to work as part of their punishment.
The amendment has two sections. Section 1 abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude. Section 2 gives Congress the power to enforce abolition through legislation—and that power reaches further than formal abolition alone. In *Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.* (1968), the Supreme Court held that Section 2 allows Congress to prohibit private racial discrimination in housing, because such discrimination perpetuates a "badge and incident" of slavery that Congress can eradicate. This makes the Thirteenth Amendment one of the few constitutional provisions that directly reaches private conduct—not just government action.
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Key Concepts0/6
Historical Context
Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment—the Senate 38–6 on [April 8, 1864](https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/senate-and-constitution/senate-passes-the-thirteenth-amendment.htm) and the House 119–56 on [January 31, 1865](https://guides.loc.gov/13th-amendment/digital-collections)—and states ratified it on [December 6, 1865](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-13/), making it the first Reconstruction Amendment. It ended 246 years of chattel slavery tracing to the first enslaved Africans brought to [Point Comfort, Virginia in 1619](https://www.nps.gov/fomr/learn/historyculture/1619.htm). The exception for "punishment for crime" immediately spawned convict leasing—a system where states leased prisoners, overwhelmingly Black men, to private companies for near-free labor under brutal conditions. By 1898, Alabama derived roughly [73% of its state revenue from convict leasing](https://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/themes/convict-leasing/), a practice historians describe as "slavery by another name." The system persisted in parts of the South until World War II. Congress used its Section 2 enforcement power to pass the [Civil Rights Act of 1866](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-13/)—the first federal statute to define citizenship and prohibit racial discrimination in civil rights. The Supreme Court confirmed in [*Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.* (1968)](https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/645) that Section 2 reaches private actors who impose the "badges and incidents" of slavery, giving Congress authority to legislate against private discrimination beyond what the Fourteenth Amendment alone would permit.
How This Shows Up Today
- Prison labor programs under the exception clause
- Human trafficking prosecutions
- Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. (1968) - private discrimination
Discussion Questions4
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