Ratified by the required three-fourths of states on
December 18, 1865

Reprinted on GPO Access: Constitution of the United States
(Web site)

Slavery is outlawed in the United States

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States.…"

The most obvious result of the American Civil War (1861–65) was the elimination of slavery. But that was not the original goal of President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865; served 1861–65) and it was not achieved all at once. The end to forced labor came in phases, as Lincoln and Congress adopted measures to take slaves away from the Confederacy and enlist African Americans in the Northern effort to win the war.

Lincoln had always hated slavery, but at first he did not think the federal government could eliminate a form of servitude that had been preserved in the Constitution, the document establishing...