United States Constitutional Amendments require ratification from ¾ of the nation’s states. However, what about the rest of the states? Well, apparently they can just fall through the cracks. It recently became apparent that Mississippi had not yet formally ratified the 13th Amendment. Mississippi was one of the original four states to reject ratification of this amendment in 1865, although all three of the other states did ratify the amendment since then. However, apparently Mississippi never got around to doing this!

This “misstep” became apparent when University of Mississippi Medical Center professor Dr. Ranjan Batra looked into the matter. After seeing Spielberg’s Lincoln, Dr. Batra became curious and decided to research the ratification process in Mississippi. While doing this, he found that the Mississippi state legislature eventually voted to approve the amendment in 1995, but that this legislation was never sent to the Office of the Federal Register and therefore never made official. Dr. Bantra then took steps to gain formal ratification of the 13th Amendment on February 7th, 2013.





Of course, just because Mississippi had not ratified does not mean that they are guilty of violating its provisions. However, this has not the media from mocking Mississippi’s mistake.

Well, better late than never, I suppose!