Which amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery nationwide, a legacy remembered during America250?

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

Congress approved the amendment after the Civil War. The Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, and the House of Representatives approved it on January 31, 1865. It became part of the Constitution when Georgia’s ratification on December 6, 1865, brought the total to the required 27 of 36 states.

The amendment was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments. The Fourteenth Amendment addressed citizenship and equal protection, while the Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying voting rights on the basis of race. Those later amendments are therefore different from the amendment that directly ended slavery.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect in 1863, but it applied primarily to areas in rebellion and did not permanently abolish slavery everywhere. The Thirteenth Amendment provided the nationwide constitutional prohibition.