[Sidenote:  Abolition of slavery, 1865.]

439.  The Thirteenth Amendment, 1865.—­President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (p. 331) had freed the slaves in those states and parts of states which were in rebellion against the national government.  It had not freed the slaves in the loyal states.  It had not destroyed slavery as an institution.  Any state could reestablish slavery whenever it chose.  Slavery could be prohibited only by an amendment of the Constitution.  So the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, December, 1865.  This amendment declares that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”  In this way slavery came to an end throughout the United States.

[Illustration:  HORSE CAR.]

[Sidenote:  Forced labor in the South. McMaster, 429.]

[Sidenote:  The Freedmen’s Bureau. Source-book, 339-342.]

440.  Congress and the President, 1865-66.—­Unhappily many of the old slave states had passed laws to compel the negroes to work.  They had introduced a system of forced labor which was about the same thing as slavery.  In December, 1865, the new Congress met.  The Republicans were in the majority.  They refused to admit the Senators and Representatives from the reorganized Southern states and at once set to work to pass laws for the protection of the negroes.  In March, 1865, while the war was still going on, and while Lincoln was alive, Congress had established the Freedmen’s Bureau to look after the interests of the negroes.  Congress now (February, 1866) passed a bill to continue the Bureau and to give it much more power.  Johnson promptly vetoed the bill.  In the following July Congress passed another bill to continue the Freedmen’s Bureau.  In this bill the officers of the Bureau were given greatly enlarged powers, the education of the blacks was provided for, and the army might be used to compel obedience to the law.  Johnson vetoed this bill also.

[Sidenote:  Civil Rights Bill, 1866.]

[Sidenote:  It is passed over Johnson’s veto.]

[Sidenote:  The Fourteenth Amendment, 1866.]

441.  The Fourteenth Amendment.—­While this contest over the Freedmen’s Bureau was going on, Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill to protect the freedmen.  This bill provided that cases concerning the civil rights of the freedmen should be heard in the United States courts instead of in the state courts.  Johnson thought that Congress had no power to do this.  He vetoed the bill, and Congress passed it over his veto.  Congress then drew up the Fourteenth Amendment.  This forbade the states to abridge the rights of the citizens, white or black.  It further provided that the representation of any state in Congress should be diminished whenever it denied the franchise to any one except for taking part in rebellion.  Finally it guaranteed the debt of the United States, and declared all debts incurred in support of rebellion null and void.  Every Southern state except Tennessee refused to accept this amendment.