The 13th Amendment, passed by Congress January 31, 1865, and ratified December 6, 1865, states:
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.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
.... All but three of the remaining states had ratified it by 1870 (two of those would not ratify it until the second half of the 20th century): Delaware ratified it on February 12, 1901, Kentucky on March 18, 1976, and Mississippi on March 16, 1995. - HistoryNet
America has locked up so many black people it has warped our sense of reality
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