December 6, 2015, marked the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which wrote slavery out of our Constitution and breathed life into Abraham Lincoln’s promise of a “new birth of freedom.” The National Archives, in partnership with the National Constitution Center, Constitutional Accountability Center commemorated this momentous date in our Nation’s history on December 7, 2015, by bringing together judges, scholars, and journalists to discuss the Thirteenth Amendment’s contemporary significance as part of our larger Second Founding Celebration.
The two panels, moderated by National Constitution Center president Jeffrey Rosen, featured Judge Bernice Donald, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; Judge Jeremy D. Fogel, Director of the Federal Judicial Center; Judge James Wynn, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; author and journalist Richard Brookhiser; Thavolia Glymph, professor of history, Duke University; and Kate Masur, professor of history, Northwestern University.
