Article 4: Freedom from slavery and

forced labour
What Are Human Rights?
Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, nationality, ethnicity, language,
religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and
torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is
entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
Are there any restrictions to this right?
Your right to be protected against slavery and servitude is absolute, which means it can never be
restricted.

The right relating to forced labour is also absolute. However, it does not apply to work that:

● you have to do as part of a prison or community sentence

● the government requires you to do in a state of emergency, such as after a natural or man-made
disaster, and
● is part of normal civic obligations, like jury service.
Abraham Lincoln and slavery
Abraham Lincoln's position on slavery is one of the most discussed
aspects of his life. Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery
in public and private. "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong", he
stated in a now-famous quote. However, the question of what to do
about it, how to end it given that it was so firmly embedded in the
economy of the country, was complex and politically challenging.
During 1861-62 he tried and failed to get the loyal border states to buy out the slave owners and
abolish slavery on their own, but they refused. On January 1, 1863 Lincoln used his war powers to
issue the Emancipation Proclamation. It made all slaves in Confederate areas free by U.S. law as
soon as the U.S. army reached them--and they reached all of them by June 1865. On the first day, it
affected tens of thousands of slaves. Week by week as the Union army advanced the slaves lly the
last were freed in Texas were freed on "Juneteenth" (June 19, 1865). Final abolition in the border
states was achieved later that year, with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution, which Lincoln vigorously promoted.