December 6 · This Day in America
Georgia becomes the twenty-seventh state to ratify, and with that signature the United States crosses the three-fourths line. Slavery — written into the country's bones, defended in its founding compromises, fought over for four years and 600,000 dead — is now unconstitutional everywhere the flag flies. The amendment is twenty-six plain words: neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States. Frederick Douglass had said the work was not done until it was law; now it is law. Four million people who were property are people in full before the Constitution. The promise written in Philadelphia in 1776 — that all are created equal — finally has the force of the supreme law behind it. The argument is not over. The lie is. America has, at terrible cost, made itself tell the truth.
Source: www.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1884
Workers set a nine-inch aluminum capstone atop the Washington Monument, finishing a obelisk begun thirty-six years and one civil war earlier. At 555 feet it is the tallest structure on Earth. Aluminum is then so rare it is considered a precious metal; the little pyramid is displayed at Tiffany's before it is hauled up. A nation that had to stop building this thing to save itself returns and finishes it, reaching higher than anyone ever had.
Source: www.archives.gov
“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.”Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 1865