Roll Call of the House of Representatives’ vote on the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery

Ratified in December 1865, more than two centuries after the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the American colonies, and at the cessation of four years of civil war, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery and forced labor in the United States, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment first passed in the Senate in April 1864, and then in the House of Representatives in January 1865. If the Southern states had not seceded, the House would not have been able to pass the amendment. The vote was still far from unanimous: 117 in favor and 56 opposed. Schuyler Colfax (R-IN), then serving as Speaker of the House, understood the amendment’s historical significance and loaned the original record of House votes for display at the Northwestern Sanitary Fair, set to open in Chicago in June 1865.