The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

radification of the 13th Amendment

State Date *
1 Illinois Feb 1, 1865
2 Rhode Island Feb 2, 1865
3 Michigan Feb 3, 1865
4 Maryland Feb 3, 1865
5 New York Feb 3, 1865
6 Pennsylvania Feb 3, 1865
7 West Virginia Feb 3, 1865
8 Missouri Feb 6, 1865
9 Maine Feb 7, 1865
10 Kansas Feb 7, 1865
11 Massachusetts Feb 7, 1865
12 Virginia Feb 9, 1865
13 Ohio Feb 10, 1865
14 Indiana Feb 13, 1865
15 Nevada Feb 16, 1865
16 Louisiana Feb 17, 1865
17 Minnesota Feb 23, 1865
18 Wisconsin Feb 24, 1865
19 Vermont Mar 8, 1865
20 Tennessee Apr 7, 1865
21 Arkansas Apr 14, 1865
22 Connecticut May 4, 1865
23 New Hampshire Jul 1, 1865
24 South Carolina Nov 13, 1865
25 Alabama Dec 2, 1865
26 North Carolina Dec 4, 1865
27 Georgia Dec 6, 1865 *

28 Oregon Dec 8, 1865
29 California Dec 19, 1865
30 Florida Dec 28, 1865
31 Iowa Jan 15, 1866
32 New Jersey Jan 23, 1866
33 Texas Feb 18, 1870
34 Delaware Feb 12, 1901
35 Kentucky Mar 18, 1976
36 Mississippi Mar 16, 1995 *
Ratified in 309 days

* Mississippi ratified the amendment in 1995, but because the state never officially notified the US Archivist, the ratification is not official.

This amendment was specifically rejected by Delaware on Feb 8, 1865; by Kentucky on Feb 24, 1865; by New Jersey on Mar 16, 1865; and by Mississippi on Dec 4, 1865. Florida reaffirmed its ratification on Jun 9, 1868.

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Notice that even at this late date that the northern states of New Jersey, Oregon, California, Iowa, and Delaware did not ratify this amendment until their was of no importance.

Virginia and Tennessee ratified the 13th Amendment before Lee's surrendered at Appomattox. How did that happen?
Six other southern states (Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana) were under the control of an occupation unionist governments at the time they ratified this amendment.
Arkansas and Louisiana ratified the Amendment before the Confederate Army in the Trans Mississippi surrendered on May 26th, 1865.
Missouri and Kentucky are question marks as to how legitimate their state governments were to the will of the people at the time they ratified the Amendment.

The question is would the 13th amendment have passed ratification without the southern states vote? To ratifiy the 13th amendment required 2/3, or 24, of the 36 states in 1865. That required only two of the Northern states to vote with the 11 southern states to have killed the amendment process. If the 13th Amendment would not have passed in 1865 under a fair and equal vote, how then was the War about 'freeing the slaves' by legal due process?

The answer is that it was not about "Freeing the slaves" by 'due legal process', because the abolishionist knew that was impossible in 1860. They knew they would not be able to get such an amendment even introduced into Congress let alone passed. This is what John Brown was doing at Harper's Ferry in 1859. Trying to institute a Rebellion within the black population to achieve that emancipation. When that failed, there was but one other course of action left. And so history is written. Induce a war between the States and make it look like the southern (Slave holding) states started it.