US President Abraham Lincoln signed the thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, prohibiting slavery, on this day 145 years ago. Some five years previously, the Republican Party’s candidate Abraham Lincoln had won the presidential election on an anti-slavery platform, and seven southern states seceded from the Union before Lincoln took office on 4th March 1861. The rebel states were joined by four others, and the American Civil War commenced.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate states that did not return to the Union by 1st January 1863. The war dragged on for another two years, and 620,000 soldiers were killed, as were an unknown number of civilians. As 1865 arrived, it became apparent that the Union were winning, and in January the House of Representatives passed the Thirteenth Amendment.
Some of the states ratified the amendment immediately – Illinois being first on 1st February 1865 – while other states took longer. 18 states had ratified the amendment by the end of February. General Robert E Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S Grant in April, and the Confederate resistance essentially finished by mid year. The Thirteenth Amendment came into force in December 1865 after three quarters of the states had ratified it.