SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The phraseology followed pretty closely that of the Ordinance of 1787. Trumbull adopted it because it was among the household words of the nation. To become effective as a part of the Constitution, this article required the votes of two thirds of each branch of Congress and ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the States. Presenting the resolution to the Senate, Trumbull said that nobody could doubt that the conflict then raging, and all the desolation and death consequent thereon, had their origin in the institution of slavery; that even those who contended that the trouble was due to the agitators and abolitionists of the North must admit that if there were no slavery there would be no abolitionists. So also it must be admitted that if there had been no slavery there would have been no secession and no civil war. All the strife that had ever afflicted the nation, or all that could be considered menacing to the country's peace, had had its source in that institution. Various laws had been passed by Congress to give freedom to slaves of rebel owners and even these laws had not been executed properly. The President of the United States had issued a preliminary proclamation in September, 1862, and a final one in January, 1863, declaring all slaves under rebel control free, but not those under our control. The legal effect of such a proclamation had been a matter of dispute. Some persons held that the President had the constitutional power to issue it and that all the slaves designated were free, or would become so whenever the rebellion should be crushed; while others contended that it had no effect either _de jure_ or _de facto_. It was the duty of the lawmaking power to put an end to this uncertainty by some act more comprehensive than any that had yet been adopted. Would a mere act of Congress suffice? It had been an axiom of all parties from the beginning of the Government that Congress had no authority to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. We had authority, of course, to put down the enemies of the country and the right to slay them in battle; we had authority to confiscate their property; but did that give us authority to slay the friends of the Union, to confiscate their property, or to free their slaves? In his opinion the only conclusive and irrepealable way to make an end of slavery was by an amendment of the Constitution, and the only practical question remaining was whether the resolution recommended by the committee could secure a two-thirds vote in Congress and the concurrence of three fourths of the states.