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Why Is The 13th Amendment Important

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The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and would essentially free an entire people from the chains of bondage. Many of the framers of the constitution were in fact slave owners. It is believed that as many as twenty five of the fifty members of the continental convention were slave holders at one time or another. Could the Constitution have been written in such a way that it would support slavery? The author, Steven Mitz writes: "Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was 'defective from the start.' He pointed out that the framers had left out a majority of Americans when they wrote the phrase, 'We the People.'". Aside from the Bill of Rights, the Thirteenth Amendment is one of the most important amendments to the Constitution, in the fact that it effectively ended slavery in the United States.

Slavery was essentially an institution in America in the 18th and 19th centuries. The southern states would rely largely on slavery for their agriculture such as the cultivating and tending of their crops. Many Americans of the time viewed blacks as primitive savages who were not worthy of equality and freedom. It is hard for people of today to understand how the …show more content…

"The havoc of war aroused northern passions for vengeance, and emancipation was the perfect instrument of retribution". (Vorenberg 37).The Emancipation Proclamation only served to free slaves of the southern states at first. However, the Union would have to defeat the Confederate States before it could be enforced. The Emancipation would also allow blacks to serve in the Union Army. By the end of the Civil War, nearly 200,000 blacks served in the U.S. Army making up Nearly 10 percent of the soldiers that served with the Union. We can only speculate as to how the war may have ended had the Confederate Army allowed blacks to serve in

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