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Comment by victor106 | Hacker News Reader

> In 1995, he realized Mississippi had never ratified the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery. So he pushed that state's Legislature to do it — and it worked.

Just think about that for a second: Someone had to push the state legislature to abolish slavery in 1995. Just sickening

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At least good thing they simply ratified it, instead of putting it to a vote. That could have become embarrassing, as Alabama found:

> Back in 2000, Alabama became the last state in the country to overturn its ban on interracial marriage. And despite more than three decades having passed since the Supreme Court ruled such laws unconstitutional (rendering such bans effectively moot), more than 40 percent of Alabamians still voted against overturning it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/02/09/al...

No, they ratified the amendment which had already abolished slavery, a purely symbolic act. The ratification was unanimous so it's not like there was any opposition to it in 1995.

Slavery was never really abolished, it's still allowed as punishment for a crime. The bias of police and the criminal justice system against people of certain races takes on a new meaning in this light.

No … slavery is/was the reduction of humans to commodities. Even a convicted prisoner can’t be sold.

There’s an exception in the 13th for convicts, but the results are very different from chattel slavery.

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