13th Amendment Abolishes Slavery Throughout the United States

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on December 6, 1865, formally abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was the culmination of decades of abolitionist struggle and the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives in the Civil War, and it transformed the legal status of four million formerly enslaved people.