150th ANNIVERSARY OF THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas on January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to declare the freedom of nearly four million enslaved Americans living within the Confederacy during the Civil War. Whereas by the year 1863 when the aforementioned proclamation was issued, the institutional practice of slavery in the United States had persisted since its beginnings during the earliest years of the original colonial settlement that preceded the establishment of this republic and the laws of the constitution upon which it is founded. Whereas the institution of slavery itself was thus not permanently outlawed by the Emancipation Proclamation but instead, the enslaved Americans living in Confederate territory were legally defined as being a part of the contraband property and assets used in support of the rebellion against the United States and thus were seized accordingly through the wartime powers of the President under the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation which declared "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Whereas the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not affect the status of those enslaved Americans currently living within Union territory in the states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware and whose status would not be immediately affected by the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865 as were those who were enslaved within Confederate territory at that time where they were subsequently liberated by advancing and occupying Union military forces. Whereas the proposed Thirteenth Amendment to the constitution would eventually be submitted to Congress where it would receive passage on January 31, 1865 as the most essential measure to allow the permanent dismantling of the institution of slavery in all parts and territories of the United States. Whereas on December 18, 1865 William H. Seward, the secretary of the United States Department of State issued the official proclamation which would certify and declare the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution to be in effect on the twelfth day following its ratification by the state of Georgia on December 6 that completed the fulfillment of all requirements for its formal and permanent adoption to the constitution of the United States. Whereas on December 18, 1865, the formal adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the constitution forever outlawed slavery in the United States and marked the permanent end to more than two centuries of this institutionalized practice of human bondage in America by affirming that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any territory subject to its jurisdiction" and authorized Congress to enforce the new amendment "by appropriate legislation." Whereas the lives of four million Americans was forever transformed by their newly attained status as free persons living in the United States and that the same status would to be applied to all of their descendants for future generations onward and without end. Whereas the complete and final abolition of slavery in the United States would ultimately make possible the establishment of birthright citizenship, due process, universal voting rights and many other freedoms that are now guaranteed to all Americans by the laws of this nation. Whereas on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of this action by the United States to amend its constitution as the supreme law of the land for the purpose of upholding the fundamental principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that are enshrined by the immortal words of its preamble. BE IT RESOLVED, The Select Board of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts do hereby proclaim December 18, 2015 as National Freedom Day in Amherst, to be celebrated in a ceremony at Town Hall on the same day. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, we have set our hands and imprinted the seal of the Town of Amherst, Massachusetts, this __th day of December, in the year 2015.