The abolition of slavery in America, as well as Russian serfdom, occurred in the early sixties of the XIX century. These events have much in common, and the differences were in terms of liberation and political circumstances.
The amendment to the Constitution of the North American States approved by Congress on the last day of January 1865. For four years, the abolition of slavery in the United States, the "bastion of freedom and democracy", occurred later than in Russia, the "prison of the peoples."
The amendment itself claimed a ban on slavery or servitude, unless there was a court decision. She gave Congress the right to use this text as the basis for the legislative act.
The author of the amendment was Abraham Lincoln. The “Proclamation on the Liberation of Slaves” was circulated to him three years earlier, in it all the slaves were declared free. True, to implement this legal norm was then impossible. The south was not controlled by northerners.
The main goals of its adoption were not originally to make black Americans happy. There was a civil war, and the economic base of the enemy (the southern states) was agriculture. Slaves worked on the plantations to knock this foundation out from under the Confederate’s feet, it was necessary to take measures unpopular even among the congressmen of the industrial North.
As now, a bipartisan system operated in the main representative body of the Lincoln era. The possible abolition of slavery in the United States caused desperate resistance from the Democrats. The Republicans (Lincoln and his supporters) achieved their goal by all means available to them, including bribery and blackmail. Identifying weaknesses in the reputation of a congressman, they gently hinted at the possibility of making secret vices public. The greedy were offered remuneration for a vote in favor of the amendment. Paradoxically, Lincoln, being a by nature a crystal-clear honest man, achieved the adoption of one of the fairest laws in the history of mankind, using corrupt methods.
The most dramatic was the day on which the legal abolition of slavery in the United States occurred. Negotiating negotiators arrived in the House of Representatives from Richmond (the capital of the Confederation) to discuss the terms of surrender. The very meaning of the adoption of the amendment was lost, but Lincoln, already carried away by the very process of political struggle, deceived the members of the assembly, refuting the South's readiness to surrender.
The idea of equality of all Americans, regardless of their skin color, was not popular in those years either in the South or in the North. The abolition of slavery in the United States was accompanied by many legal tricks, sometimes making it meaningless. The next, XIV, amendment to the Constitution (1868) prohibited the adoption by the states of new discriminatory laws, but did not require the repeal of the old ones. Those senators who voted for the release of slaves did not in any way even allow the thought that black “free citizens” would be able to vote and be elected on a par with whites.
Segregation (the separation of schools, transportation, hotels, park benches and public toilets for black and white) continued to operate in many southern US states until the 60s of the 20th century. Moreover, it recently became clear that in Mississippi the general and final abolition of slavery in the United States was not formalized. The year 2013 was the date of the disappearance of the last stronghold of racism. The document ratified in 1995 wandered through bureaucratic labyrinths for another 18 years, until it was finally officially adopted by the Federal Register on February 7 . As the saying goes: "Better late than never."
Has total equality now arrived? Unlikely. However, this applies not only to America ...