Which U.S. constitutional amendment abolished slavery nationwide in 1865?

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery nationwide in the United States in 1865.

Congress approved the amendment after the Civil War: the Senate passed it on April 8, 1864, and the House approved it on January 31, 1865. The required number of states ratified it on December 6, 1865, and it was proclaimed part of the Constitution on December 18.

Its text prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime after conviction. This exception later became connected to exploitative convict-labor systems, so legal abolition did not immediately end every form of forced labor or racial oppression.

The amendment differed from the Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln issued in 1863 and applied primarily to enslaved people in areas under Confederate control. The Thirteenth Amendment established a nationwide constitutional prohibition and became the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments.