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.
This amendment, rather simple in writing, was revolutionary for its time. It banned all slavery of all forms from the United States forever. Beyond the freeing of African and African American slaves from the constraints of the South (most Northern states had already banned slavery), this also required any labor to be paid for. Some interesting exceptions to this would be the duly convicted felons stated in the amendment, any form of the military draft (although there are ways to get out of that, e.g. bed wetting, drugs, etc.), and jury duty service. While this decision solved many problems, there remained a few glaring errors; namely that the newly freed prisoners had no place to go, no land, and no income. But this was simply a step-wise solution that Abraham Lincoln pioneered and called a "new birth of freedom".
Conditions for freed slaves were quite similar to that of the time of their slavery.
In the movie Django Unchained, the man known as Dr. King Schultz treats slaves just as kindly as free men. This is a movie full of racial inequality and brings to question a lot about this particular time period.
More information about this amendment can be found here.
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