slaves in those States should be emancipated. This did not apply to the Union States, as Delaware, which still had slaves. But immediately upon the cessation of hostilities, Congress set to work to make emancipation general throughout the Union and to give the Negro all the rights of a citizen. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified December 18, 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. The following April, the first Civil Rights Bill[5] was passed, which declared that "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime . . . shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, . . . and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings in the security of persons and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishments and penalties, and to none other. . . ."
These rights were enlarged by the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, which provides that: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within
