Four US States Abolished Slavery, Louisiana Rejects Referendum

On midterm election day, five US states voted to abolish slavery for prisoners: only Louisiana decided to keep it.

Author: Tommaso Coluzzi

Louisiana didn’t want to cancel slavery🇧🇷 The midterm elections in the United States, which are held in the middle of the president’s term – in this case Joe Biden – to renew Parliament, also coincided with a series of referendums held in individual US states. There was a vote on the right to abortion, but also on the liberalization of some soft drugs. And, among other things, five states voted to abolish slavery. But how is it possible that it still exists in the United States? Wasn’t it eliminated 150 years ago? Yes, but clarification is needed.

In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect in the United States, outlawing slavery as the property of other individuals. However, there is a kind of exception, which concerns people who are in prison: they can be forced into forced labour, in most cases without even an economic counterpart, and – essentially – be forced into slavery with shifts. of mandatory and exhausting work .

Five states voted to eliminate that possibility, but Louisiana – after a long bureaucratic amendment process – decided to reject the referendum with more than 60% of preferences. The change would have been symbolic, at least in the case of Louisiana, as the various revisions to the amendment in question would have weakened it little by little. All this would also have been confirmed by the prosecutor himself, an exponent of the Democratic Party, who – explain the American media – in the end would have even withdrawn his support for his own proposed amendment. The anti-slavery referendum, on the other hand, passed without problems in Tennessee with a percentage close to 80%, in Oregon with about 54%, in Vermont with almost 90% and also in Alabama.

Source: Fan Page IT

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