Delaware's refusal to ratify the 13th Amendment
Delaware, the first state to ratify the United States Constitution in 1787, stands as a study in contradiction: the same state that rushed to embrace the new national framework was among the last to formally acknowledge the abolition of slavery, refusing for decades to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This refusal, rooted in political opposition and the enduring influence of pro-slavery sentiment within the state's legislature, left Delaware in a position of prolonged defiance that would not be formally reversed until the twentieth century. The episode remains a significant chapter in Delaware's complex and often fraught relationship with the institution of slavery and the civil rights of African Americans.
Background: Delaware and Slavery
Delaware's history with slavery was never straightforward. Geographically situated at the border between the North and South, the state occupied an ambiguous position during the antebellum era. While slavery existed within its borders, it was practiced on a smaller scale than in the Deep South, and a significant free Black population lived and worked throughout the state well before the Civil War. Nevertheless, the political and economic interests of slaveholders exercised a disproportionate influence over state government, and that influence shaped Delaware's legislative responses to federal measures aimed at ending slavery.
The University of Delaware has documented that despite being the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1787, Delaware refused to sign the Thirteenth Amendment to formally abolish slavery until the twentieth century.[1] This historical fact encapsulates the paradox at the heart of Delaware's civic identity — a founding state that nonetheless resisted some of the most consequential expansions of human freedom in American history.
The Thirteenth Amendment and Delaware's Initial Refusal
The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified nationally on December 6, 1865, formally abolishing slavery throughout the United States.[2] However, individual state ratification was not required for the amendment to take effect once the necessary threshold of states had voted in favor. Despite this, a state's ratification — or refusal to ratify — carried significant symbolic and political weight.
Delaware's legislature declined to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment when it came before them. The ACLU of Delaware has recorded that the state legislature formally voted against the amendment, with legislators refusing "to adopt and ratify" it and claiming that its passage was "contrary to the principles upon which the government was framed."[3] This argument framed the amendment not as a moral correction but as an overreach of federal authority — a position that reflected the broader resistance among border and Southern states to what they characterized as federal interference in matters they considered to be the domain of individual states.
The language used by Delaware's legislators — that abolishing slavery was contrary to the principles of the government — was remarkable given that the Constitution itself had always existed in tension with the institution of slavery, a tension that the Civil War had only just violently resolved. For Delaware's political majority at the time, however, the amendment represented an unwelcome transformation of the federal compact rather than a fulfillment of its founding ideals.
Political Context: The Democratic Legislature
The refusal to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment did not occur in isolation. Delaware's legislature during this era was dominated by the Democratic Party, which consistently opposed measures designed to secure the rights and freedoms of African Americans. The New York Times has reported that over the years following the Civil War, the Democratic legislature refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as well, which would have guaranteed African American civil rights.[4] Together, these refusals painted a picture of a state government determined to resist the Reconstruction-era amendments that were reshaping the relationship between the federal government, the states, and formerly enslaved people.
This pattern of resistance was not unique to Delaware. Across the former Confederate states and many border states, Democratic-controlled legislatures sought to limit the reach of Reconstruction legislation and to preserve as much of the pre-war social order as possible. Delaware's position was distinctive primarily because of its status as a non-Confederate, northern border state — one that had remained in the Union during the Civil War but whose political leadership nonetheless aligned with those seeking to impede progress toward racial equality.
The opposition to these amendments in Delaware was also tied to the economic interests of landowners and employers who depended on low-wage or coerced labor. Formally acknowledging the end of slavery, in this view, carried practical consequences that Delaware's political elite was not prepared to accept without resistance.
Symbolism and the Prolonged Refusal
For the generations that lived under the long shadow of Delaware's refusal, the state's stance was more than symbolic — it reflected an ongoing unwillingness among those in power to acknowledge the full humanity and citizenship of African Americans. The Equal Justice Initiative has noted that when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified nationally in 1865, most whites in the South refused to accept the emancipated status of formerly enslaved people, and that resistance took many forms, from legislative obstruction to outright violence.[5] Delaware's legislative refusal fit within this broader pattern of denial, even if the state's circumstances differed in degree from those of the Deep South.
The symbolism of a founding state — the very first to ratify the Constitution — refusing to ratify the amendment that completed the long-deferred promise of liberty was not lost on observers then or since. Delaware had placed itself on the wrong side of a defining moral question, and the formal record of that refusal became part of the state's historical identity.
Ratification in the Twentieth Century
Delaware's eventual ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in the twentieth century came long after the amendment had already become the law of the land by virtue of the required number of states having approved it in 1865. The belated ratification was therefore a symbolic act rather than a legally consequential one, but it carried meaning as a formal acknowledgment of a historical wrong.
The University of Delaware has confirmed that this delayed ratification did not occur until the twentieth century, underscoring just how long the state's official posture of refusal endured.[6] The gap between the national ratification in 1865 and Delaware's eventual action spanned multiple generations, during which time the state's African American residents lived under the formal shadow of a government that had explicitly refused to endorse their freedom.
This belated ratification, while welcomed by many, also prompted reflection on what it meant for a state to reconcile with its history. The ACLU of Delaware has pointed to the legislature's original language — condemning the amendment as contrary to the principles of government — as an example of how deeply embedded the resistance to racial equality was within Delaware's institutional history.[7]
Delaware's Apology for Slavery
In a related act of historical reckoning, Delaware at a later point formally apologized for its role in perpetuating slavery. The Equal Justice Initiative reported on this apology, situating it within a broader national moment of reflection on the legacy of slavery and its aftermath.[8] Such apologies, while carrying no legal force, have been viewed by historians and civil rights advocates as meaningful steps in acknowledging the moral failures embedded in a state's past.
The apology represented a different kind of statement than the belated ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment — one that went beyond procedural acknowledgment to express something closer to moral contrition. Whether such acts constitute genuine reconciliation or serve primarily as symbolic gestures has been a matter of ongoing debate in Delaware and in other states that have taken similar steps.
Legacy and Historical Significance
Delaware's refusal to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment when it was first presented, and the decades-long delay before the state finally acted, remain central to any honest accounting of the state's history. The episode illustrates how political institutions can be used to obstruct moral progress and how the language of constitutional principle can be deployed to defend practices that violate the very values those principles claim to uphold.
The ACLU of Delaware has emphasized that understanding this history is essential for evaluating Delaware's ongoing relationship with civil rights and racial justice.[9] The state's identity as the "First State" — a title derived from its early ratification of the Constitution — sits in uncomfortable tension with its record as among the last to formally affirm the abolition of slavery.
For scholars of American constitutional history, Delaware's case offers a clear example of how the formal mechanisms of state ratification can be used as instruments of resistance, even when the underlying law has already been enacted at the national level. The Thirteenth Amendment did not require Delaware's ratification to become law; what Delaware's refusal accomplished was to place the state on record as opposed to the emancipation of enslaved people — a position that the state's own historical legacy was forced to carry for generations.
The University of Delaware's documentation of this history — framing Delaware as both "first and last" in its relationship to the Constitution and to slavery — captures the essential irony that defines this episode.[10] It is a history that continues to inform conversations about race, law, and institutional accountability in the state today.