Slavery Abolished

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1866

Slavery Abolished.

SLAVERY no longer exists on American soil by authority of the government. The following proclamation by Secretary Seward, shows that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, abolishing slavery, has now become a part of the Great Charter of the nation:

To all whom these presents may concern, greeting:—

Know ye, that whereas the Congress of the United States on the first day of February last, passed a resolution which is in the words following, namely:

A resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States:

_Resolved_, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two-thirds of both houses concurring, that the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of said Constitution:

ART. 13, SEC. 1.—Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the parties have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

SEC. 2.—Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

And whereas, it appears from official documents on file in this department, that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the Legislatures of the States of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia, in all twenty-seven States; and whereas, the whole number of States in the United States is thirty-six; and whereas, the before specially named States whose Legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment, constitute three-fourths of the whole number of States in the United States:

Now, therefore, be it known, that I, William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress, approved the 20th of April, 1818, entitled "An act to provide for the publication of the laws of the United States, and for other purposes," do hereby certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid to all intents and purposes, and part of the Constitution of the United States.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 18th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1865, and of the Independence of the United States of America the ninetieth.

WM. H. SEWARD, Sec. of State.