When was the Thirteenth Amendment ratified, abolishing slavery throughout the United States?

The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, abolishing slavery throughout the United States.

The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude illegal, except as punishment for a crime after conviction. Congress approved the proposal after the Civil War: the Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, and the House passed it on January 31, 1865.

Ratification required approval from three-fourths of the states. Georgia’s ratification supplied the necessary twenty-seventh approval from the thirty-six states then in the Union. President Andrew Johnson formally proclaimed the amendment on December 18, 1865.

The amendment differed from the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln issued in 1863 and applied primarily to enslaved people in Confederate-held areas. The Thirteenth Amendment established a constitutional nationwide prohibition. Its exception clause later became connected to debates about convict leasing, forced labor, and prison labor.