Author's Keywords: Emancipation; Thirteenth Amendment; Slavery	Convention All Academic Convention makes running your annual conference simple and cost effective. It is your online solution for abstract management, peer review, and scheduling for your annual meeting or convention. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: Association for the Study of African American Life and History URL: http://www.asalh.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p206075_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Essah, Patience. "Freeing the Enslaved: The Battle to Ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Atlanta Hilton, Charlotte, NC, Oct 03, 2007 <Not Available>. 2010-01-24 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p206075_index.html>

Essah, P. , 2007-10-03 "Freeing the Enslaved: The Battle to Ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Atlanta Hilton, Charlotte, NC <Not Available>. 2010-01-24 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p206075_index.html

Publication Type: Individual Paper Abstract: This paper examines why the states of Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey and Mississippi rejected ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Even as America celebrated its independence, slavery created a divided nation: an antislavery North versus a proslavery South. Unable to agree, the nation plunged into a Civil War that pitted the South and its assertion of States� Rights and unchecked expansion of slavery against the North�s claim of an indivisible nation resting on free soil principles. Yet, throughout much of the war, it remained uncertain whether Union victory would guarantee universal emancipation for the Union took rather hesitant steps that freed some slaves but left the institution still legal. It was to settle the fate of the many still enslaved as the war ended that Congress enacted the Thirteenth Amendment. While most states readily ratified the Amendment, New Jersey, Delaware, Kentucky, and Mississippi withheld support. Ultimately, New Jersey ratified it in 1866, Delaware waited till 1901, Kentucky held off till 1976, but maverick Mississippi delayed ratification until 1995! This begs the question: why did New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, states that remained loyal to the Union, fiercely resist ratification of the amendment offering freedom to the remaining slaves? Why did Mississippi agree to abolish slavery only to rescind its decision a few weeks later? Looking beyond the argument that sees economic concerns as the main reason for opposing ratification, I argue that the real answers lie in the local political and social realities of each state.

Rejecting Organic Change: Formal Amendment and Fixed Constitutions in Early American State Constitution-making

Ballot Initiative Laws and Constitutional Amendments: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage in the United States

“The Influence of State Constitutional Text on Policy Divergence: State Supreme Courts and the Blaine Amendments”