For America's 250th anniversary, which 1865 amendment abolished slavery in the United States?

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States in 1865, except as punishment for a crime.

The amendment passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865. It was ratified by the required 27 of the 36 states on December 6, 1865, and formally proclaimed on December 18.

It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted after the Civil War. The Fourteenth Amendment addressed citizenship and equal protection, while the Fifteenth prohibited denying voting rights based on race, so those amendments are common mix-ups.

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had freed enslaved people in areas controlled by the Confederacy, but it did not abolish slavery everywhere. The Thirteenth Amendment made abolition a constitutional rule throughout the country. Its exception concerning criminal punishment remains part of the amendment's text.