The state of Mississippi apparently didn’t ratify the 13 Amendment until last month.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, was ratified in 1865. Lawmakers in Mississippi, however, only got around to officially ratifying the amendment last month — 148 years later — thanks to the movie “Lincoln.”
The state’s historical oversight came to light after Mississippi resident Ranjan Batra saw the Steven Spielberg-directed film last November, the Clarion-Ledger reports.
Mister Batra and a fellow resident reportedly contacted Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann to inform him that Mississippi never ratified the 13th amendment. The state then rectified the issue.
Finally, on Jan. 30, Hosemann sent the Office of the Federal Register a copy of the 1995 resolution, and on Feb. 7, the Federal Register made the ratification official.
According to the Clarion-Ledger, it’s unclear why the state never sent the U.S. Archivist its 1995 resolution. “What an amendment to have an error in filing,” Dick Molpus, who served then as secretary of state, told the paper.
Somewhere, a state’s rights fetishist is dreaming of challenging Delbert Hosemann.