Gregory Watson - Post-Ratification of 13th Amendment By Mississippi

Post-Ratification of 13th Amendment By Mississippi

In 1994, with the 27th Amendment already ratified, Watson verified that the Mississippi Legislature had never ratified the 13th Amendment (abolishing slavery). The only official pronouncement of Mississippi lawmakers as to the 13th Amendment was a resolution adopted in 1865 specifically rejecting the 13th Amendment. After Kentucky legislators took belated favorable action in 1976, Mississippi was left standing alone for 19 years as the only state in the Union both before and after Congress proposed the 13th Amendment to have never—even symbolically—gone on record in support of it.

During the summer of 1994, Watson sent letters to all African-American members of the Mississippi Senate and the Mississippi House of Representatives informing them of Mississippi's status as to the 13th Amendment and he enclosed with each letter a draft resolution for the Mississippi Legislature to adopt in order to ceremonially post-ratify the 13th Amendment. In March 1995, Mississippi's Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 547 was adopted, thereby making Mississippi the final state to approve the 13th Amendment, albeit 130 years tardy.