Although the words slavery and slave are never mentioned in the Constitution, the Thirteenth Amendment abrogated those sections of the Constitution which had tacitly codified the “peculiar institution”: Article I, Section 2, regarding apportionment of representation in the House of Representatives, which had been “determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons provided for the appointment,” with “all other persons” meaning slaves Article I, Section 9, which had established 1807 as the end date for the importation of slaves, referred to in this case as “such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit” and Article IV, Section 2, which mandated the return to their owners of fugitive slaves, here defined as persons “held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another.” Thirteenth Amendment, amendment (1865) to the Constitution of the United States that formally abolished slavery.
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