The Measures Taken to Abolish of Slavery in

the United States Between 1861 and 1865

Jeremy Anderson
History 1700
Fall 2015

Slavery in the United States was still widely accepted, especially in the South, during the
mid 1800s, but sincere efforts to abolish it were not made until Abraham Lincolns presidency
which ranged from 1861 to 1865. Many laws pertaining to slavery written before Lincolns term
referred to slaves as property, or real estate so-to-speak (i.e. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850),
which contributed to the dehumanizing principles of the practice that were eventually outlawed
in Northern states, causing measures taken for abolition to become more intensive and
permanent. Even with Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation, Southern states continued their
refusal to recognize freed slaves, so further measures such as the Thirteenth amendment needed
to be put into place to enforce the recognition of the free slaves. The abolition of slavery in the
United States was an attempt to mend a divided union caused by Southern stubbornness and
secession fueled by its desire to perpetuate the practice, and to uphold social status maintained by
the ideals of white supremacy.
By 1850, California had been declared a free state and the District of Columbia outlawed
the practice of slave trading, but confederate states such as Texas were receiving concessions
from the federal government that permitted slaveholding. 1 These rulings were part of the group
of laws known as the Compromise of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The
law states that with sufficient evidence upon the claim that if a person is a runaway slave,
escaped from a slave state to a free state, they shall be returned to their owner and sentenced to
serve the rest of the term of labor. 2 Other sections of the law explained that the obstruction of
justice, or retrieval of a fugitive slave, shall have resulted in a fine up to one thousand dollars

1 Federal Government and Congress. Fugitive Slave Laws. United States:

1850
2 Federal Government and Congress. Fugitive Slave Laws. United States:
1850, Sec: 6

or a prison sentence of no more than six months. 3The Fugitive Slave Act was an attempt made
by the South to sustain the right to the property that upheld its social hierarchy, which meant
that slaveholding was a staple of higher class. The law contributed to the abolition of slavery
because it stated that a Southerner could travel to a free Northern state to retrieve a slave,
treating the (yet to be) freed as something that is owned. Even 12 years later in 1862, a journalist
Austa Malinda French ventures to the South to document the conditions he saw first hand
through interviews and observations. One interview with a woman from Boston emphasizes that
the Northern ideal that slavery should not exist in the United States comes from the basic
principle that a human being should not be treated as property. She explains that its not even the
brutality that makes slavery so bad, It is the dehumanizing influences of slavery that are so
horrible, so horrible!4 The idea that slavery should no longer exist in the united states came
before Abraham Lincoln, but his efforts specifically provided a beginning to abolition.
Lincolns fist attempt was the Emancipation Proclamation written in 1863, which stated
that all slaves in Southern states that currently permitted the practice shall be free. 5 Being the
first, this attempt was not as successful as its guidelines show it was meant to be. The
proclamation intended for all slaves to be free along with admittance into the army, abstinence
from violence and reasonable wages in labor6, so that if there were no choice to perpetuate
slavery, the South would no longer hold a reason to secede which would have ultimately ended
the countrys dispute. With that being the ideal case, that is not what happened. Most Southern
states refused to act in compliance to the proclamation, and resumed slave trading and holding.
3 Federal Government and Congress. Fugitive Slave Laws. United States:
1850, Sec: 7
4 French, A.M. (Austa Malinda). Slavery in South Carolina and the Ex Slaves.
South Carolina: 1862
5 Lincoln, Abraham. The Emancipation Proclamation. United states: 1863
6 Lincoln, Abraham. The Emancipation Proclamation. United states: 1863

Although the Emancipation Proclamation was meant to abolish slavery in the South where
compromise seemed unfathomable, the confederate states still acted as if the proclamation were
not issued because without the ability to own slaves, those with higher social status would no
longer hold the assets required to be in the higher positions in society. With the South
unwilling to take steps to end the practice, in the following months of the same year as the
proclamation, William H. Russell from the North traveled South to document his experience.
After observing Southern homes still holding slaves; with an antiphlogistic diet and barely
enough water to keep them laboring, Russell came to the conclusion that the foundation of
slavery in the south lies in the power of obtaining labor at will.7 Following Russells journey, in
1864, Abraham Lincoln sent a memorandum to congress stating that the United States would
cooperate with any state willing to adopt the gradual abolition of slavery. With that, president
Lincoln also offered to provide pecuniary aid to be utilized by any state participating in taking
measures of abolition as part of Henry Wilsons journal about the history of the antislavery
measures in the Untied States.8 Provided that Southern states were offered monetary
compensation in regards to sudden system change, and that they still refused to acknowledge
the policies enacted by the Emancipation, it was clear that the perpetuation the south was trying
to achieve was not about real estate or ownership, but about social status since it cannot be
bought or compensated monetarily. Southern refusal to budge one year after his proclamation
proved to be enough for Lincoln in regards to his efforts to exterminate the practice since further
efforts were necessary to enforce the recognition of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
In the following year, in January of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was reviewed and
passed by congress, which then had to undergo the process of ratification. 1865 marked the end
7 Russell, William H. My Diary North and South. 1863, p. 79
8 Wilson, Henry. History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and ThirtyeighthUnited-States Congresses. 1864 p. 80-81

of Abraham Lincolns presidency along with the end of the Civil War. With the war ending in
April, just a few short months after the amendment was passed, it is revealed that the underlying
cause of division in the nation might have been in fact a racial dispute in the sense that blacks
were inferior to whites. This reasoning was ultimately what kept the south in constant negation
with any idea related to the end of slavery, gradual or immediately, and is most prominently
emphasized through the Souths refusal to accept monetary compensation from the executive
government for any inconveniences caused by sudden system and social change whether it be
personal or professional. Their actions of refusal were an expression that their social structure
was based on white superiority and the outlook that those who were anything but were inferior,
and so much so that the entire section of the United States prolonged their unwillingness to
comply with Executive jurisdiction. As a final measure to abolish and more specifically enforce
abolition of slavery, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified on December 31, 1865, stating that
neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment of crime, shall exist in the
United States.9 Slavery technically should have ended with the Emancipation Proclamation,
but because the confederacy persisted in being stubborn in upholding their way of life and their
efforts at secession before the end of the war, the laws were ultimately disregarded and further
measures (including the Thirteenth Amendment) needed to be taken in order to force the South to
recognize that all slaves shall be free.
The Emancipation Proclamation stated that slaves in Southern states currently considered to be
in rebellion of the united states were to be freed along with admittance into military operations
and reasonable pay for sincere labor. To emphasize that the south and other parts of the United
States, even after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, continued to disregard more
9 Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress. The 13th Amendment.
United States: 1865

subtly the terms of these documents, two more constitutional amendments needed to be ratified
in order for the entirety of the union to be forced to recognize that blacks in the United States are
humans and not an object used to identify high status. The first was the Fourteenth Amendment
stating that citizens born in the United States are to remain citizens, and the second was the
Fifteenth Amendment which granted African American men the right to vote.
Although slavery was forcefully abolished in the entirety of the United States by 1865, the
dehumanizing aspects of it lingered past the Fifteenth Amendment ratified in 1870. First given
that suffrage for African Americans only expanded to the men, and many times not even that.
The amendment only states that a state or any state bodies shall not deny suffrage based on race,
color, or previous conditions of servitude.10 A Yale Law Journal from 1904 explains that although
a state was unable to deny suffrage based on race, its validity on an interpersonal level is brought
into question, meaning that if an individual not representing the state or the integrity of the state
acted in regards to denying an African American male citizen his rights, he may not be punished
with a criminal act.11
On a macro scale and in a legal sense, African American males in the South were
supposed to be entitled to free labor and reasonable wages by 1863 with the exception of a few
select individuals and counties in states, and although these privileges were stated in the law, the
South refused to abide the guidelines by continuing to objectify slaves in regards to holding a
high place in society. Southern states disregarded the Emancipation Proclamation and the
Thirteenth Amendments ratification became necessary because slaves were still being
dehumanized. Once the South could no longer legally practice slavery, to maintain dominance,
10 James V. Brown. (Yale Law Journal) Constitutional law Power of congress Under 15th Amendment
Validity of Statute Against Wrongful Individual Acts, 23 Sup. Ct. 687. (1904)

11 James V. Brown. (Yale Law Journal) Constitutional law Power of congress Under 15th Amendment
Validity of Statute Against Wrongful Individual Acts, 23 Sup. Ct. 687. (1904)

former slaveholders and those involved with the slave party or pro-slavery continued to
mistreat African Americans to the point that more constitutional amendments were necessary in
order to attempt to enforce fair treatment while where supremacy still existed. While slavery was
no longer practiced in the United States, the mistreatment and dehumanizing principles lingered
until multiple social movements passed through the nation and amendments were ratified.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:
Lincoln, Abraham and the United States Congress. The 13th Amendment.
United States: 1865,http://memory.loc.gov/cgi bin/ampage?
collId=mal&fileName=mal3/436/4361100/malpage.db&recNum=0
(accessed October 29, 2015)
Lincoln, Abraham. The Emancipation Proclamation. United states: 1863,
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_procla
mation/
(accessed October 27th, 2015)
Federal Government and Congress. Fugitive Slave Laws. United States: 1850,
http://www.nationalcenter.org/FugitiveSlaveAct.html

French, A.M. (Austa Malinda). Slavery in South Carolina and the Ex Slaves.
South Carolina: 1862, https://archive.org/details/slaveryinsouth00french
(Accessed October 30, 2015)
Wilson, Henry. History of the Antislavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth
United-States Congresses. 1864, https://archive.org/details/antislaverymease00wilsrich
(Accessed October 30, 2015)
Russell, William H. My Diary North and South. 1863,
https://archive.org/details/mydiarynorth00russrich (Accessed October 30, 2015)
Secondary Sources:
James V. Brown. (Yale Law Journal) Constitutional law Power of congress Under 15th Amendment
Validity of Statute Against Wrongful Individual Acts, 23 Sup. Ct. 687. (1904)