Earlier this month, Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment banning slavery, after a specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center saw the movie “Lincoln” and started digging into the states’ ratification of the legislation.
Georgia gave the amendment the three-fourths’ vote it needed in December 1865, according to the Clarion-Ledger. Mississippi, Delaware Kentucky and New Jersey rejected the amendment. Kentucky ratified the amendment on March 18, 1976 after rejecting it on Feb. 24, 1865.
The specialist, Ken Sullivan, found out that Mississippi lawmakers voted to ratify the amendment in 1995, but never sent the necessary paperwork to the Office of the Federal Register, according to the Clarion-Ledger report published Sunday.
Sullivan contacted the Mississippi Secretary of States’ office in late January, and the Senate resolution was sent to the federal government. On Feb. 7, the Federal Register wrote back: “With this action, the State of Missippi has ratified the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Read the whole story here.
(Apple/DreamWorks)
