Twelve of the first eighteen American presidents owned slaves.
Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration and called slavery an “abominable crime,” yet he was a lifelong slaveholder.
Fearful of dividing the fragile new nation, Jefferson and other founders who opposed slavery did not insist on abolishing it.
It took 87 more years and the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13th Amendment to end slavery.
Abolishing slavery means to get rid of it and end it for good.
The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8,