AMENDMENT XIII Part I

Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Note: A portion of Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution was superseded by the 13th Amendment.
AMENDMENT IX
Section 1
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to
vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States,
Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,
and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such
male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President,
or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously
taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any
State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to
the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for
payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be
questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or
emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5
The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
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AMENDMENT XIII
Although the Declaration of Independence symbolized the concept of freedom and equality, it failed to
address the subject of slavery. In fact, slavery was legal in all 13 colonies when the Second Continental
Congress adopted the declaration in 1776. Once ratified, the Constitution prohibited the practice of
importing slaves by 1808 and by 1819, it became a capital offense, and during the 1810s, a political
dispute arose over the creation of states out from the Louisiana Purchase territory the United States had
acquired from France in 1803. The disagreement focused on whether the new states would be free
states in which slavery would be illegal, as in the Northern states, or whether they would be slave states
in which slavery would be legal, as in the Southern states. By 1820, the Missouri Compromise banned
slavery in new Western territories, which the Southern states deemed a threat to slavery and to their
unique culture, the Southern way of life. On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court crafted a landmark
decision known as the Dred Scott Decision which raised emotions on slavery in both the North and
South. The case was the beginning of the political landslide towards civil war.
The clash began in 1846 when a slave named Dred Scott, along his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom
in St. Louis Circuit Court. Their argument was since their residence had been for some time in a free
territory where slavery was prohibited, it alone confirmed they were free. By itself, the odds of their
winning the case was favorable, because they had lived with their owner, an army surgeon, at Fort
Snelling, Wisconsin Territory. The Scotts’ freedom could be established on the grounds they had been
held in bondage for extended periods of time in a free territory and were then returned to a slave state,
since courts had ruled this way in the past. Then again, what appeared to be a straightforward lawsuit
between two private parties became an eleven-year legal battle that concluded in one of the most
infamous decisions issued by the United States Supreme Court.
From the beginning, as the case worked its way through the Missouri state courts, the Scotts lost again
and again. They then filed a federal suit which ultimately reached the Supreme Court, but as it moved
towards the U.S. Supreme Court, the Dred Scott case intensified in extent and significance, for slavery
had become the greatest volatile issue in the United States. When the case reached the high court, it
had come to have mammoth political implications for the nation, for the reason that on March 6, 1857,
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated that enslaved people
were not citizens of the United States, therefore, the Scott’s could not expect any protection from the
federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had not been given authority to
ban slavery from federal territory which was stated in the Constitution. In the end, the decision moved
the nation closer towards the civil war. Moreover, the decision fueled the Abolition Movement
throughout the North.
In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that “…all persons held as
slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion
against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Nonetheless, the
proclamation did not end slavery in the nation since it only applied to areas of the Confederacy currently
in a state of rebellion (not the loyal “Border States” that remained in the Union). Lincoln well-knew that
the proclamation was non-binding, for it would need to be followed by a constitutional amendment
abolishing slavery throughout the country.
Towards the end of the Civil War, the 13th Amendment passed in the Senate before the Southern states
had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed in Congress. However, though the Senate
passed it in April 1864, the House initially did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure
passage through Congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th Amendment be added to the Republican
Party platform for the upcoming 1864 Presidential election. His efforts met with success when the House
passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119–56 and on February 1, 1865, President Abraham
Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state
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legislatures. The necessary number of states (three-fourths) was ratified on December 6, 1865. The 13th
Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within
the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
AMENDMENT IX
At the conclusion of the Civil War, Congress presented to the states three amendments as part of its
Reconstruction program to guarantee equal civil and legal rights to Black citizens. The foremost provision
of the 14th Amendment was to bestow citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United
States,” thereby awarding citizenship to the formerly enslaved Blacks. Equally important was another
provision was the statement “…nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.” The right to due process of law and equal protection of the law now applied to both the federal
and state governments. As a result, on June 16, 1866, the House Joint Resolution proposing the 14th
Amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states and on July 28, 1868, the 14th amendment
was declared, in a certificate of the Secretary of State, ratified by the necessary 28 of the 37 States, and
became part of the supreme law of the land.
Congressman John A. Bingham of Ohio, the primary author of the first section of the 14th Amendment,
intended that the amendment also nationalize the Bill of Rights by making it compulsory upon the states.
When introducing the amendment, Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan specifically stated that the
privileges and immunities clause would extend to the states “the personal rights guaranteed and
secured by the first eight amendments.” However, historians disagree on how widely Bingham’s and
Howard’s views were shared at the time in the Congress, or across the country in general. Not one
member of Congress explicitly contradicted their view of the amendment – only a few members said
anything at all about its meaning on this issue, and for decades thereafter, the Supreme Court ruled that
the amendment did not encompass the Bill of Rights to the states.
Not only did the 14th Amendment neglected to encompass the Bill of Rights to the states; it also
neglected to defend the rights of Black citizens. A remnant of Reconstruction was the unwavering
struggle of Black and White citizens to compose the promise that the 14th Amendment would one day
become a reality. Citizens petitioned and initiated court cases, Congress enacted legislation, and the
executive branch attempted to enforce measures that would guard all citizens’ rights. Although these
citizens failed in galvanizing the 14th Amendment during Reconstruction, they effectually enunciated
arguments and offered dissenting views that would become the foundation for change in the decades to
come.
Many individuals believe the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Section 1) is the source
of Constitutional Rights, including many of our most cherished—and most controversial, however, the
Constitution does not create rights; it recognizes and affirms pre-existing rights. In Article I, Section 9 of
the Constitution, there are a few significant protections. The writ of habeas corpus, which requires a
court order to justify someone’s imprisonment, cannot be suspended unless in cases of rebellion or
invasion where public safety is at risk. This provision ensures that the government cannot lawlessly
detain individuals without judicial oversight.
Additionally, Article I, Sections 9 and 10 prohibit bills of attainder and ex post facto laws. Bills of attainder
are legislative acts that target and punish specific individuals or groups without a judicial trial. Ex post
facto laws retroactively criminalize actions that were legal when initially performed, undermining the
principle of fair notice. These prohibitions prevent arbitrary and retroactive punishment by both federal
and state governments.
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Sources:
Constitution Annotated – https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
Constitution Annotated – https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/
Heritage Foundation – https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-citizenshipfundamental-misunderstanding-the-14th-amendment
National Archives – https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment
National Archives – https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment
National Constitution Center – https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution