Which amendment to the US Constitution that was ratified in 1865 abolished slavery and involuntary servitude?

The Thirteenth Amendment is the answer. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1865 and abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, except as punishment for a crime.

The Amendment That Ended Slavery

The Thirteenth Amendment, also written as the 13th Amendment, changed the Constitution itself. Its first section states that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist in the United States, except when imposed as punishment after a criminal conviction. That wording made abolition a national constitutional rule rather than a temporary wartime measure or a policy limited to certain states.

Ratified After the Civil War

The amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865, after the Civil War had ended. Its ratification came during the early Reconstruction period, when the country was trying to define the legal status of formerly enslaved people and the defeated Confederate states. The Thirteenth Amendment made the abolition of slavery permanent in constitutional law, although it did not by itself create full civil or political equality.

How It Differed From the Emancipation Proclamation

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came earlier, during the Civil War, and functioned as a wartime executive action. The Thirteenth Amendment went further because it became part of the U.S. Constitution. That distinction matters because the Emancipation Proclamation depended on presidential war powers, while the Thirteenth Amendment permanently abolished slavery and involuntary servitude as a constitutional rule across the nation.