glish colonies in North America came on a Dutch privateer that landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in August 1619. The ship had only 20 surviving Africans to sell to the struggling colony. Soon may colonies started importing African slaves. Lincoln summed up the problem of slavery in his speech accepting the presidential nomination, saying, "the nation can not survive half-slave and half-free." The U.S. Civil War was fought partly over the issue of slavery, a war that resulted in almost 900,000, casualties. Lincoln's Emancipation of Proclamation on January 1, 1863 declared the slave of the c!
             onfederacy free during the war. With the passing of the thirteenth Amendment in 1865 slavery was constitutionally abolished in the United States. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States ratified in 1870, prohibits federal or state governments from infringing on a citizen's ri
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