The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Though many slaves had been declared free by President Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, their post-war status was uncertain. During the war, it applied only to the states that were in active rebellion on January 1, 1863, but did not apply to slave-holding border states or to areas of Confederate states already under Union control at the time. Lincoln and his fellow Republicans knew that the Emancipation Proclamation might be viewed as a temporary war measure and not outlaw slavery once the Civil War ended, so they focused on passing a constitutional amendment that would do so. http://bit.ly/1QoNgxQ