the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to
the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
COMMENTARY:
This amendment provides that members of the Electoral College, called electors, vote
for one person as President and for another as Vice President. The amendment resulted
from the election of`1800. At that time, each elector voted for two men, not saying which he
wanted for President. The man who received the most votes was to become President, and
the runner-up Vice President. Thomas Jefferson, the presidential candidate of what was to
become the Democratic Party, and Aaron Burr, the vice presidential candidate of the same
party, received the same number of electoral votes. The tie threw the election into the House
of Representatives, controlled by the opposition party, the Federalist. The House finally
chose Jefferson but took so long that people feared it would fail to choose a President before
Inauguration Day. The House has chosen one other President — John Quincy Adams
in 1825.
Amendment 13
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
This amendment was proposed on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865.
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.
COMMENTARY:
President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had freed the slaves in
the Confederate States still in rebellion. This amendment completed the abolition of slavery in
the United States.
SECTION 2
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.