New Jersey became the last northern state to officially abolish slavery by ratification, on January 23, 1866. The amendment had already become part of the Constitution on December 18, 1865, after ratification by the necessary number of states.

December 1865

By Phil Kohn
Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com

On December 2, 1865, Alabama becomes the 25th state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which would ban slavery throughout the nation. The ratification by three quarters (27) of the 36 states is necessary for the Amendment to become part of the Constitution and the law of the land.

North Carolina, on December 4, becomes the 26th state to ratify the 13th Amendment.

Georgia, on December 6, ratifies the 13th Amendment, becoming the 27th state to do so and the final one needed to have the amendment added to the Constitution.

On December 18, Secretary of State William Seward declares the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in effect. The amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The declaration immediately frees the slaves still held in the loyal-to-the-Union border states of Kentucky (between 65,000 and 100,000) and Delaware (around 900). It also liberates the 16 enslaved people in New Jersey, the only Northern state where individuals were kept in involuntary bondage throughout the war — and afterward. (New Jersey had passed a law in 1804 allowing for the gradual elimination of slavery, but the law covered only persons — including slaves’ children — born after July 4, 1840. In 1846 the state abolished the “peculiar institution” [i.e., slavery] but conveniently re-categorized its slaves as “indentured servants apprenticed for life.” The Emancipation Proclamation did not free New Jersey’s “indentured servants” or Kentucky’s and Delaware’s slaves because it applied only in states “in rebellion” in 1863. New Jersey finally ratified the 13th Amendment — on its second try — in January 1866. In 2008, the state legislature apologized for New Jersey’s role in slavery. Delaware ratified the 13th Amendment in February 1901, and Kentucky did so in March 1976. The last state to ratify the 13th Amendment was Mississippi, in February 2013.)

December 20 marks the five-year anniversary of the convention in Charleston, South Carolina, that voted to have the state secede from the Union, the step that started the wheels turning inexorably towards Civil War.

At Pulaski, Tennessee, six former officers of the Confederate Army on December 24 start the Ku Klux Klan. It starts out as a fraternal social club, parodying more-staid fraternal societies, such as the Freemasons. It soon turns to resisting Reconstruction, intimidating those who support Reconstruction in the South, whether Northerners (“carpetbaggers”) or locals (“scalawags”), and repressing the rights of Freedmen. December 24 also marks the fifth anniversary of a prophetic warning made in 1860 by William Tecumseh Sherman, superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (later becoming Louisiana State University) upon his learning of the secession of South Carolina. Sherman, a West Point graduate and a U.S. Army officer for 13 years prior to resigning his commission in 1853, writes to a friend on the school’s faculty: “You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it. . . Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.”

President Andrew Johnson on April 2, 1866, declares the insurrection at an end in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida. Texas is omitted because a post-war government has not yet been formed.

On August 20, 1866, President Johnson declares the insurrection ended in Texas “and that peace, order, tranquility and civil authority now exist in and throughout the whole of the United States of America.”

This concludes our series. Thank you for reading.