The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
Congress passed the amendment on January 31, 1865, and the required number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. Its text prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime after conviction.
The amendment was adopted near the end of the American Civil War and transformed the legal status of millions of enslaved people. The Emancipation Proclamation had declared freedom for enslaved people in areas rebelling against the Union, but the amendment created a nationwide constitutional prohibition.
The Fourteenth Amendment addressed citizenship and equal protection, while the Fifteenth prohibited racial restrictions on voting for men. Those amendments are related Reconstruction measures, but they did not abolish slavery.