Directions: Below are two primary source documents from the 1860s. Consider the following questions as you read the texts:

1) What are the key provisions of the 13th Amendment?

Primary Source 1: The 13th Amendment Section 1. 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 their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Primary Source 2: Excerpt from "The Consummated Amendment." New York Times. December 20, 1865. "This certificate of the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment by the necessary number of States, is the first official recognition by the government of the constitutional equality of the late insurrectionary States with the other States. It, therefore, is doubly momentous. It makes an end forever of slavery, and, at the same time, vitalizes the essential principle of restoration. It is impossible for the government which has recognized the voice of South Carolina to be equally potent with that of Massachusetts, and that of Georgia to have the same effect as that of New-York, in the amendment of the organic law of the Union, to deny them equal functions in the Union. The very highest power of a State is to say yea or nay to a proposed amendment to the constitution. The active exercise of that function necessarily involves all other powers. The Executive Department, which certifies to the ratification of the amendment by eight of the late insurrectionary States, is but consistent in remitting to them, as fast as possible, the full exercise of all powers."