Successes of the Abolition Movement Northern victory over the South in the Civil War and continuing abolitionist agitation led in December 1865 to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which banned involuntary servitude throughout the country.As a pre-Civil War movement, it was a flop. Antislavery congressmen were able to push through their amendment because of the absence of the pro-slavery South, and the complicated politics of the Civil War. Abolitionism's surprise victory has misled generations about how change gets made
