On This Day in History: February 7

Mississippi finally ratifies the 13th Amendment

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In a move that surprised absolutely no one, the state that often ranks last in education, Mississippi, failed to ratify the 13th Amendment for the abolition of slavery. Then in 2013 someone saw the movie Lincoln and said this is embarrassing can we just fucking ratify it already?

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: February 7, 2013--

Back in 1865, three-quarters of the states (27 of 36) needed to ratify the 13th Amendment for it to be enacted. This was accomplished by the end of the year. Most of the holdouts signed on by 1870. Delaware got its shit together and ratified in 1901. Kentucky said nope fuck you until 1976 when they finally changed their minds and said okay.

In 1994 a clerk in the Texas legislature named Gregory Watson said hey fucking Mississippi never ratified the 13thAmendment. So he contacted every Black member of the Mississippi legislature to say the fuck? They took action and the following year a unanimous vote favored ratification, although it was largely symbolic, but also about fucking time.

Except then, fuckery.

In 2013 Ranjan Batra, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Mississippi, saw the movie Lincoln, which is all about the president’s efforts to pass the 13th prior to the end of the Civil War out of fear that the Emancipation Proclamation could be tossed by the courts and that the amendment would be defeated by returning slave states. Batra discussed the film with colleague Ken Sullivan, who was prompted to do some digging. Sullivan soon realized that a critical step in the process had been missed. Apparently, someone in Mississippi totally by fucking accident just plain fucking forgot to send a copy of the resolution to the U.S. Archivist, so it never got recorded, and was therefore not yet officially ratified by Mississippi.

That someone was Mississippi’s secretary of state, Dick Molpus, a white guy. Fucking typical. Except wait! Douse those torches and put down those pitchforks. There is more to this story. But first, Sullivan got in touch with the new secretary of state and said hey we need to do this thing and he did that thing and Mississippi finally officially ratified the 13th Amendment on February 7, 2013.

Back to Dick, who wasn’t one, it turns out. Two weeks after the ratification Jon Stewart gave Dick shit on The Daily Show for failing to do his job. But then the show was contacted by Constance Slaughter-Harvey, a Black woman who was Dick’s assistant secretary of state and she said it was her job to send in the paperwork, and she did! Stewart apologized on air the following week, praising Molpus, who actually had a good record on civil rights.

So I guess it was just lost in the fucking mail or something. Anyway, never too late.

Thanks, Becca, for the suggestion of today’s topic.

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