6 December

Georgia's ratification, on 6 December 1865, meant that Mississippi was bound by the amendment, even though it never did ratify it. The states of New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, which also voted against the amendment initially, later voted for ratification - although it took Kentucky until 1976 to do so in what was by then a symbolic gesture.

'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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'