Praxis II Citizenship

Answer: B -Upon its 1865 ratification, the Thirteenth Amendment federally prohibited slavery and indentured servitude. Two years earlier, President Lincoln emancipated all of the slaves in the rebelling (Confederate) states, but he had not been able to emancipate any slaves in the North or the West. The Thirteenth Amendment banned slavery across the nation. Congress passed the amendment in January 1865, in the final months of the Civil War. Lincoln died before it was ratified by the requisite number of states in December. The denial of equal protection under the law based solely on race was the primary objective of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, it only protected American residents who were considered citizens: males over 21. Secession was considered treason, which was already a federal crime in 1865. Surprisingly, in 1865 presidential assassination was legally treated like any other murder case would be-as a state crime. It wasn’t until the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination almost one century later that the government made presidential assassination a federal crime.