Why is the Thirteenth Amendment important?

0:05The 13th Amendment is one of the critical changes in the Constitution in our entire history because it abrogated, or that is to say, outlawed the institution of slavery. The original Constitution did not actually include the word slavery. It did refer to slaves, calling them other persons or persons held to labor. In other words, it recognized that slavery was present, but there was nothing in the original Constitution about the institution of slavery that was determined by the individual states. The 13th Amendment banned slavery henceforth, in the entire United States. Slavery had already been put basically on its deathbed by the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln on January 1st, 1863, which freed or declared free over three million slaves, but it left about three-quarters of a million unaffected, the emancipation proclamation. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States.

1:11It also included a very important second clause or section, which said that Congress would have the power to enforce this amendment with appropriate legislation. In other words, it authorized Congress to move forward with further legislation. What does it mean to abolish slavery? That may seem like a simple question, but it actually isn't because it didn't answer the question, what is going to be the role of these four million former slaves in American history or in American society? Will they have the same rights as white people? Will they have the right to vote? Will they have the right to compete in the labor market? Will they have civil rights, the same as White Americans? The 13th Amendment didn't answer those questions. You might say it put those questions on

2:03the national agenda to be debated during Reconstruction and though that issue of the status of the former slaves was certainly the crux in many ways of the politics of the Reconstruction era.