JOINT RESOLUTION

Submitting to the legislatures of the several States a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two thirds of both Houses concurring,) That the following article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said Constitution, namely:

ARTICLE XIII.

SEC. 1. All persons shall have the right peaceably to assemble and worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience.

SEC. 2. The use of the public press shall not be obstructed; but criminal publications made in one State against the lawful institutions of another State shall not be allowed.

SEC. 3. The right of citizens to free and lawful speech in public assemblies shall not be denied. Access of citizens to the ballot box shall not be obstructed either by civil or military power. The military shall always be subordinate to the existing judicial authority over citizens. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall never be suspended in the presence of the judicial authority.

SEC. 4. The militia of a State or of the United States shall not be employed to invade the lawful rights of the people of any of the several States; but the United States shall not be hereby deprived of the right and power to defend and protect its property and rights within the limits of any of the States.

SEC. 5. Persons held to service or labor for life, in any State under the laws thereof, may be taken into any Territory of the United States south of north latitude 36° 30′, and the right to such service or labor shall not be impaired thereby, and the territorial Legislature thereof shall have the exclusive right to make and shall make all needful rules and regulations for the protection of such right, and also for the protection of such persons; but Congress or any territorial Legislature shall not have power to impair or abolish such right of service in the said Territory while in a territorial condition without the consent of all the States south of said latitude which maintain such service.

SEC. 6. Involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall not be permanently established within the District set apart for the seat of Government of the United States; but the right of sojourn in such District with persons held to service or labor for life shall not be denied.

SEC. 7. When any Territory of the United States south of north latitude 36° 30′ shall have a population equal to the ratio of representation for one member of Congress, and the people thereof shall have formed a constitution for a republican form of government, it shall be admitted as a State into the Union, on an equal footing with the other States; and the people may in such constitution either prohibit or sustain the right to involuntary labor or service, and alter or amend the constitution at their will.

SEC. 8. The present right of representation in section two, article one, of this Constitution, shall not be altered without the consent of all the States maintaining the right to involuntary service or labor south of latitude 36° 30′, but nothing in this Constitution or its amendments shall be construed to deprive any State south of said latitude 36° 30′ of the right of abolishing involuntary servitude at its will.

SEC. 9. The regulation and control of the right to labor or service in any of the States south of latitude 36° 30′ is hereby recognized to be exclusively the right of each State within its own limits; and this Constitution shall not be altered or amended to impair this right of each State without its consent: Provided, This article shall not be construed to absolve the United States from rendering assistance to suppress insurrections or domestic violence, when called upon by any State, as provided in section four, article four, of this Constitution.

SEC. 10. No State shall pass any law in any way interfering with or obstructing the recovery of fugitives from justice, or from labor or service, or any law of Congress made under article four, section two, of this Constitution; and all laws in violation of this section may, on complaint made by any person or State, be declared void by the Supreme Court of the United States.

SEC. 11. As a right of country between the several States south of latitude 36° 30′ the right of transit with persons held to involuntary labor or service from one State to another shall not be obstructed, but such persons shall not be brought into the States north of said latitude.

SEC. 12. The traffic in slaves with Africa is hereby forever prohibited on pain of death and the forfeiture of all the rights and property of persons engaged therein; and the descendants of Africans shall not be citizens.

SEC. 13. Alleged fugitives from labor or service, on request, shall have a trial by jury before being returned.

SEC. 14. All alleged fugitives charged with crime committed in violation of the laws of a State shall have the right of trial by jury, and if such person claims to be a citizen of another State, shall have a right of appeal or of a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States.

SEC. 15. All acts of any inhabitant of the United States tending to incite persons held to service or labor to insurrection or acts of domestic violence, or to abscond, are hereby prohibited and declared to be a penal offense; and all the courts of the United States shall be open to suppress and punish such offenses at the suit of any citizen of the United States or the suit of any State.

SEC. 16. All conspiracies in any State to interfere with lawful rights in any other State or against the United States shall be suppressed; and no State or the people thereof shall withdraw from this Union without the consent of three fourths of all the States, expressed by an amendment proposed and ratified in the manner provided in article five of the Constitution.

SEC. 17. Whenever any State wherein involuntary servitude is recognized or allowed shall propose to abolish such servitude, and shall apply for pecuniary assistance therein, the Congress may in its discretion grant such relief not exceeding one hundred dollars for each person liberated. But Congress shall not propose such abolishment or relief to any State.

Congress may assist free persons of African descent to emigrate and colonize Africa.

SEC. 18. Duties on imports may be imposed for revenue; but shall not be excessive or prohibitory in amount.

SEC. 19. When all of the several States shall have abolished slavery, then and thereafter slavery or involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime shall never be established or tolerated in any of the States or Territories of the United States, and they shall be forever free.

SEC. 20. The provisions of this article relating to involuntary labor or servitude shall not be altered without the consent of all the States maintaining such servitude.