1865, December 6:  Congress adopts the 13th Amendment, outlawing slavery.  The end to official slavery is perhaps the greatest labor victory in United States and Minnesota history.  Yet the struggle for equal rights was far from over; the same year, the Ku Klux Klan was formed.

Amendment Thirteen to the Constitution – the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments – was ratified on December 6, 1865. It forbids chattel slavery across the United States and in every territory under its control, except as a criminal punishment.