About the Free at Last CoalitionIn issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln set our nation on a path to end the egregious practice of slavery in America.
That historic proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, was but a first step on a long course correction to eliminate from the American states an institution completely contrary to our cherished national ideals of liberty and justice. That path stretched through the establishment of our government, wound through the Civil War, and involved adding not one, but three amendments – the 13th, 14th, and 15th, collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments – to our founding document. Even so, today, more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery is still legal in the United States. In fact, it is written into our Constitution -- a reality that the American people, by and large, find shocking and morally repugnant. Section 1 of the 13th Amendment reads: “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.” |
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The clause “except as a crime whereof the party shall have been convicted” amounts to a gaping loophole – an opening enabling the odious practice of slavery.
The Free at Last Coalition was formed to close the slavery loophole and, at last, complete the course begun by Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Our members are committed to this most worthy cause, believing that, as Lincoln himself said in his 1854 speech in Peoria, Illinois, “there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.”
The Free at Last Coalition was formed to close the slavery loophole and, at last, complete the course begun by Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Our members are committed to this most worthy cause, believing that, as Lincoln himself said in his 1854 speech in Peoria, Illinois, “there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.”
