The Thirteenth Amendment

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, enacted on December 18, 1865, abolished slavery within the United States. Immediately before the ratification of this amendment, slavery remained legal only in Kentucky and Delaware. Elsewhere, slaves had been freed either by the Emancipation Proclamation or state action., Although the Civil War was over, slavery was still legal in Kentucky in late 1865, because the Emancipation Proclamation did not legally affect Kentucky. Emancipation was slowly rolling forward in the state, however, with more than 50 percent of the young enslaved men emancipating themselves by enlisting in the United States Army. Following the Congressional Joint Resolution Freeing Families of Black Soldiers of March 3, 1865, the wives and children of these soldiers were also freed. Kentucky, having rejected the Thirteenth Amendment on February 24, 1865, finally ratified it more than one hundred years later, on March 18, 1976., Emancipation of Soldiers' Wives and Children , On March 8, 1865, the United States Congress freed the wives and children of the United States Colored Troops. This act was a direct result of an action at Camp Nelson, where 400 African American women and children were ejected from camp in November 1864. Of this group, 102 died of exposure and disease. Their deaths created a national uproar that led not only to the congressional act, but also to the establishment of the "Home for Colored Refugees” within Camp Nelson. This home eventually housed over 3,00o African American women and children., Camp Nelson's chief quartermaster Captain Theron E. Hall (above) and the Reverend John G. Fee (below) led the protest following the November 1864 ejection of African American refugees.,

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. , Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution

, Captions , Left, top: Captain Theron Hall Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division , Left, bottom: Reverend John G. Fee Courtesy of the Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Ky. , Right: Home for Colored Refugees, Camp Nelson Digital ID: 77pa103:02, Camp Nelson Photographic Collection, 1864, University of Kentucky, Timeline , 1809 Abraham Lincoln born at Sinking Spring farm, in present-day Larue County, Kentucky. , 1816 Lincoln family moved from Kentucky. , 1841 Abraham Lincoln visited his friend Joshua Speed at Farmington, the Speed family plantation, in Louisville, Kentucky. , 1842 Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky. , 1847 The Lincoln family visited Lexington, Kentucky, en route to Abraham's only term in Congress. , 1860 Abraham Lincoln elected President of the United States in November. , 1865 Abraham Lincoln assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.