The Thirteen Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary,except as punishment for a crime.It was adopted on December 6, 1865, and was then declared in a proclamation of Secretary of State William H. Seward o December 18.

President Abraham Lincoln and other were concerned that the Emancipation Proclamation would be seen as a temporary war measure and so, besides freeing slaves in those states where slavery was still legal, they supported the amendment as a means to guarantee the permanent abolition of slavery.
The Thirteen Amendment is the first Reconstruction Amendments.