An amendment to the United States Constitution to abolish slavery introduced during the American Civil War.
The Senate of the Thirty-Eighth Session of Congress
To see the full record of a committee, click on the corresponding committee on the map below.
S. 159 is reported from the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen and passes to a second reading; a message from the Governor of Virginia announces the passing of an ordinance to abolish slavery.
A BILL
To aid the proclamation of emancipation issued by the President on the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the proclamation of emancipation issued by the President of the United States on the first day of January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, so far as the same declares that the slaves in certain designated States and parts of States thenceforward should be free, is hereby adopted and enacted as a statute of the United States, and as a rule and article for the government of the military and naval forces thereof.