Focusing on the Thirteenth Amendment, this book examines emancipation after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.

Michael Vorenberg is Assistant Professor of History at Brown University.

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Slavery's constitution; 2. Freedom's constitution; 3. Facing freedom; 4. Debating freedom; 5. The key note of freedom; 6. The war within a war: emancipation and the election of 1864; 7. A King's cure; 8. The contested legacy of constitutional freedom; Appendix: votes on antislavery amendment; Bibliography; Index.