| 1780 |
|
On March 1, 1780, the Pennsylvania state legislature passes “An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” It bans the importation of slaves into Pennsylvania and holds that all children born in the state from that day forward are free, even if their parents are slaves. There is, however, a “grandfather clause” included, stating that slaves born before March 1, 1780, will remain slaves for life. (In 1847 the state legally emancipates all of the “grandfathered” slaves still living—approximately 100 people.) |
| 1783 |
|
The Massachusetts Bay Colony has had a law on the books since 1630 protecting runaway slaves from being returned to their owners if they can prove they’d been abused. But the colony was also the first to explicitly legalize slavery in its 1641 charter, the Body of Liberties. Times and people change, and after a series of legal challenges, Massachusetts abolishes slavery—in theory—via a state supreme court decision on July 8. In ruling on a wrongful imprisonment suit brought by a former slave, the court holds that “All men are born free and equal.” No laws are passed, but Massachusetts becomes a center of the abolitionist movement, and slaveholders are trusted to voluntarily stop using slaves, which they actually do. By 1790 the census lists Massachusetts’s slave population as zero. |
| 1783 |
|
New Hampshire will became a state in 1788, but the state constitution, written this year, contains a clause stating that “all men are born equal and independent,” imbued with rights that included “enjoying and defending life and liberty.” Slavery continues in the “Live Free or Die” state, but, as in Massachusetts, slave owners are expected to phase out the concept. The 1790 census notes 158 slaves. That drops to eight by 1800 and zero by 1810. |
| 1784 |
|
Connecticut banned the importation of slaves into the state 10 years earlier. Those who remain in forced servitude must wait until the passage of a 1784 bill, which provides for their gradual emancipation. The law says that all slaves, as well as all children of African or mixed racial heritage born after March 1 of this year, can gain their freedom at age 25. (In 1797 the legislature amends the bill to reduce the age of freedom to 21.) |
| 1784 |
|
Rhode Island also passes a gradual emancipation law. Children of slaves born after March 1 are legally considered unpaid “apprentices,” rather than slaves, and will get their freedom when they reach a certain age—18 for girls, 21 for boys. |
| 1791 |
|
Vermont becomes the 14th state in the Union, and the first state not to have been one of the original 13 colonies. Slavery isn’t an issue for Vermont—it was an independent nation before joining the Union, and had banned slavery in 1777. That law remains in force when it becomes a state. |
| 1799 |
|
New York adopts Pennsylvania’s “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” Like similar “gradual freedom laws,” it grants emancipation at a future date for slaves born in 1799 or later—age 28 for males and age 25 for females. Those who were already slaves remain slaves. (However, in 1817 New York will enact a statute that frees all slaves born before the 1799 law.) |
| 1803 |
|
Ohio becomes a state, operating under a constitution that delegates wrote in 1802, which includes a clear and explicit prohibition of slavery. |
| 1804 |
|
New Jersey passes its own “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.” Like its predecessors, it frees slaves when they hit a benchmark age (21 for women, 25 for men). |
| 1820 |
|
With a civil war over the issue of slavery looming—not to mention the power balance of slave states and free states—Congress passes the Compromise of 1820, commonly known as the Missouri Compromise. It admits Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine, formerly part of Massachusetts, as a free state. To further maintain the balance between north and south, the act bars slavery in the vast Louisiana Territory…above the 36° 30’ latitude line, which comprises the southern border of Missouri. |
| 1820 |
|
When Indiana got statehood in 1816, its constitution included a slavery ban, but numerous legal challenges to the ban were presented to courts. Sometimes the courts granted freedom to slaves—most of whom had been brought into Indiana from states where slavery was legal—sometimes they did not. In 1819 abolitionists challenged that inconsistency in an attempt to free a woman called Polly, slave to a Fort Wayne family and in servitude since before the passage of antislavery laws. In 1820 the Indiana Supreme Court rules that not only should Polly be freed under state law, but that all slaves in Indiana should be freed immediately. |
| 1848 |
|
Illinois was granted statehood in 1818 and allowed slavery. In 1848 a state constitution is adopted, with a section in its “Declaration of Rights” banning forced servitude. But although slavery is banned, racism continues. In 1853 the legislature will pass the Illinois Black Code, an extremely restrictive set of laws for African Americans, including a measure that bars any person of color from staying in the state for more than 10 days. |
| 1859 |
|
Kansas attempts to enter the Union as a free state, despite four years of violent confrontations between pro- and antislavery factions. Senators from Southern states delay voting on admitting a free Kansas into the nation until 1861. |
| 1861 |
|
The Civil War is on, as South Carolina becomes the first of 11 slaveholding Southern states to secede from the United States. A few “border states” opt to stay with the Union, but to keep slavery. Those states: Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. |
| 1863 |
|
On January 1, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation. It legally frees all slaves in 10 Southern slave states… although it doesn’t do much good for slaves in the “rebel” states that are still under the control of the Confederacy. Any slaves in Union-controlled areas of the South, however, are immediately freed. |
| 1863 |
|
On June 20, West Virginia secedes from Virginia. Most of the population in that region-turned-state are against slavery both in theory and practice. In the middle of the Civil War, West Virginia joins the Union, while Virginia continues to fight for the Confederacy. |
| 1864 |
|
Maryland holds a referendum to determine whether or not it should free all of the slaves in the state. Emancipation wins, but just barely: 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent. |
| 1865 |
|
The Thirteenth Amendment is added to the Constitution. It reads, in part: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to its jurisdiction.” The act requires approval of both houses of Congress as well as that of three-fourths of state legislatures. Over the course of 1865, that 75 percent majority is reached: Illinois ratifies it first, followed by Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Missouri, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and, putting it over the top on December 6, Georgia. Secretary of State William Seward certifies the vote 12 days later. After the three-fourths threshold is reached, Oregon, California, Florida, Iowa, and New Jersey all sign on by early 1866. That marks a definitive end to the Civil War, and the states that had seceded rejoin the Union after agreeing to abide by the Thirteenth Amendment. |
| 1867 to 1976 |
|
With codification of a federal law outlining all aspects of slavery, any new states entering the Union after the Thirteenth Amendment’s ratification date of 1865 are de facto free states. Between 1867 and 1959, 14 new states join the Union: Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii. However, even though slavery is illegal, several states will not ratify the Thirteenth Amendment until long after the end of the Civil War. Kentucky, for example, won’t do it until 1976, just in time for America’s bicentennial. |
| 1870 |
|
The legal status of slavery in Texas shifted about as often as Texas switched allegiances in the 19th century. In 1829 Mexican president Vicente Ramon Guerrero Saldaña banned slavery throughout the country’s territories, which included Texas. But when Texas won its independence in 1836 after the violent Texas Revolution, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas legalized slavery. The Lone Star State continued to use slaves when it was annexed as an American state in 1845, and sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Slavery only ends in Texas upon the federal enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment, which the state legislature won’t approve until 1870. |
| 2013 |
|
The last holdout: Mississippi, which finally got around to approving the antislavery amendment in 1995. (Yes, 1995.) However, that still didn’t count. In 2013 a Mississippi resident named Ranjan Batra watches the film Lincoln, which details President Abraham Lincoln’s drive to get the Thirteenth Amendment passed in the final months of his life. It inspires Batra to read up on the legal abolition of slavery, and he discovers that while his home state said it ratified that amendment, it hadn’t legally taken effect because the state never sent documentation to the federal government. Batra alerts Mississippi’s secretary of state, Delbert Housemann, who gets the paperwork in order and sends it to the Office of the Federal Register. Those officials certify the results, and so, on February 7, 2013, slavery officially becomes outlawed in all 50 states. |
