The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Part 173

[7] Ibid. 232-233.

AMENDMENT 13

SLAVERY AND INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE

Page Origin and purpose of the amendment 949 Peonage 950 Discriminations and legal compulsions less than servitude 951 Enforcement 953

SLAVERY AND INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE

Amendment 13

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Origin and Purpose of the Amendment

"The language of the Thirteenth Amendment," which "reproduced the historic words of the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, and gave them unrestricted application within the United States,"[1] was first construed in the Slaughter-House Cases.[2]

Presented there with the contention that a Louisiana statute, by conferring upon a single corporation the exclusive privilege of slaughtering cattle in New Orleans, had imposed an unconst.i.tutional servitude on the property of other butchers disadvantaged thereby, the Court expressed its inability, even after "a microscopic search," to find in said amendment any "reference to servitudes, which may have been attached to property in certain localities * * *." On the contrary, the term "servitude" appearing therein was declared to mean "a personal servitude * * * [as proven] by the use of the word 'involuntary,' which can only apply to human beings. * * * The word servitude is of larger meaning than slavery, * * *, and the obvious purpose was to forbid all shades and conditions of African slavery." But while the Court was initially in doubt as to whether persons other than negroes could share in the protection afforded by this amendment, it nevertheless conceded that although "* * * negro slavery alone was in the mind of the Congress which proposed the thirteenth article, [the latter] forbids any other kind of slavery, now or hereafter. If Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie labor system shall develop slavery of the Mexican or Chinese race within our territory, this amendment may safely be trusted to make it void."[3] All uncertainty on this score was dispelled in later decisions; and in Hodges _v._ United States[4] the Justices proclaimed unequivocally that the Thirteenth Amendment is "not a declaration in favor of a particular people. It reaches every race and every individual, and if in any respect it commits one race to the nation, it commits every race and every individual thereof. Slavery or involuntary servitude of the Chinese, of the Italian, of the Anglo-Saxon are as much within its compa.s.s as slavery or involuntary servitude of the African."[5]

Peonage

Notwithstanding its early acknowledgment in the Slaughter-House Cases that peonage was comprehended within the slavery and involuntary servitude proscribed by the Thirteenth Amendment,[6] the Court has had frequent occasion to determine whether State legislation or the conduct of individuals has contributed to reestablishment of that prohibited status. Defined as a condition of enforced servitude by which the servitor is compelled to labor in liquidation of some debt or obligation, either real or pretended, against his will, peonage was found to have been unconst.i.tutionally sanctioned by an Alabama statute, directed at defaulting sharecroppers, which imposed a criminal liability and subjected to imprisonment farm workers or tenants who abandoned their employment, breached their contracts, and exercised their legal right to enter into employment of a similar nature with another person.

The clear purpose of such a statute was declared to be the coercion of payment, by means of criminal proceedings, of a purely civil liability arising from breach of contract.[7] Several years later, in Bailey _v._ Alabama,[8] the Court voided another Alabama statute which made the refusal without just cause to perform the labor called for in a written contract of employment, or to refund the money or pay for the property advanced thereunder, _prima facie_ evidence of an intent to defraud and punishable as a criminal offense; and which was enforced subject to a local rule of evidence which prevented the accused, for the purpose of reb.u.t.ting the statutory presumption, from testifying as to his "uncommunicated motives, purpose, or intention." Inasmuch as a State "may not compel one man to labor for another in payment of a debt by punis.h.i.+ng him as a criminal if he does not perform the service or pay the debt," the Court refused to permit it "to accomplish the same result [indirectly] by creating a statutory presumption which, upon proof of no other fact, exposes him to conviction."[9] In 1914, in United States _v._ Reynolds,[10] a third Alabama enactment was condemned as conducive to peonage through the permission it accorded to persons, fined upon conviction for a misdemeanor, to confess judgment with a surety in the amount of the fine and costs, and then to agree with said surety, in consideration of the latter's payment of the confessed judgment, to reimburse him by working for him upon terms approved by the court, which, the Court pointed out, might prove more onerous than if the convict had been sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in the first place. Fulfillment of such a contract with the surety was viewed as being virtually coerced by the constant fear it induced of rearrest, a new prosecution, and a new fine for breach of contract, which new penalty the convicted person might undertake to liquidate in a similar manner attended by similar consequences. More recently, Bailey _v._ Alabama has been followed in Taylor _v._ Georgia[11] and Pollock _v._ Williams,[12] in which statutes of Georgia and Florida not materially different from that voided in the Bailey Case, were found to be unconst.i.tutional. Although the Georgia statute prohibited the defendant from testifying under oath, it did not prevent him from entering an unsworn denial both of the contract and of the receipt of any cash advancement thereunder, a factor which, the Court emphasized, was no more controlling than the customary rule of evidence in the Bailey Case.

In the Florida Case, notwithstanding the fact that the defendant pleaded guilty and accordingly obviated the necessity of applying the _prima facie_ presumption provision, the Court reached an identical result, chiefly on the ground that the presumption provision, despite its nonapplication, "had a coercive effect in producing the plea of guilty."

Discriminations and Legal Compulsions Less Than Servitude

A contention of "involuntary servitude" was rejected in the following cases:

(1) Racial discrimination. Denial of admission to public places, such as inns, restaurants, or theaters, or the segregation of races in public conveyances, etc., was held not to give rise to a "condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another," and effected no deprivation of one's legal right to dispose of his person, property, and services. Even prior to the amendment, such discriminations had never been "regarded as badges of slavery"; and it was not "the intent of the amendment to denounce every act which was wrong if done to a free man and yet justified in a condition of slavery."[13] Likewise, individuals who conspired to prevent citizens of African descent, because of their race or color, from making or carrying out contracts of labor, and so from pursuing a common calling, were not deemed to have reduced negroes to a condition of involuntary servitude; and hence a federal statute which penalized such a conspiracy was declared to be in excess of the enforcement powers vested in Congress by the Thirteenth Amendment.[14]

(2) "Services which have from time immemorial been treated as exceptional." Thus, contracts of seamen, which have from earliest historical times been treated as exceptional, and involving, to a certain extent, the surrender of personal liberty may be enforced without regard to the amendment.[15]

(3) "Enforcement of those duties which individuals owe the State, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc." Thus, "a State has inherent power to require every able-bodied man within its jurisdiction to labor for a reasonable time on public roads near his residence without direct compensation."[16] Similarly, the exaction by Congress of enforced military duty from citizens of the United States, as was done by the Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917 (40 Stat. 76); and the requirement, under the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 (50 U.S.C.A. App. -- 305 (g)), that conscientious objectors be a.s.signed to work of national importance under civilian direction, were held not to contravene the Thirteenth Amendment.[17]

(4) A State law which made it a misdemeanor for a lessor, or his agent or janitor, intentionally to fail to furnish such water, heat, light, elevator, telephone, or other service as may be required by the terms of the lease and necessary to the proper and customary use of the building, did not create an involuntary servitude.[18]

(5) Section 506 (a) of the Communications Act (47 U.S.C.A. -- 506) making it unlawful to coerce, compel, or constrain a licensee to employ persons in excess of the number of the employees needed by the licensee in the conduct of a radio broadcasting business, on its face, was construed as not violating this amendment.[19]

Enforcement

"* * * this amendment, besides abolis.h.i.+ng forever slavery and involuntary servitude * * *, gives power to Congress to protect all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States from being in any way subject to slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, and in the enjoyment of that freedom which it was the object of the amendment to secure. * * *"[20] It "is undoubtedly self-executing without any ancillary legislation, * * * [but]

legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various * * *

circ.u.mstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit." This legislation, moreover, "may be direct and primary, operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by State legislation or not; [whereas]

under the Fourteenth [Amendment], * * * it * * * can only be, corrective in its character, addressed to counteract and afford relief against State regulations or proceedings."[21]

Pursuant to its powers of enforcement under section two of this amendment, Congress on March 2, 1867 enacted a statute[22] by the terms of which the system of peonage was abolished and prohibited and penalties were imposed on anyone who holds, arrests, or returns, or causes, or aids in the arrest or return of a person to peonage. The validity of this act was sustained in Clyatt _v._ United States;[23] and more recently, in United States _v._ Gaskin,[24] a proviso thereof was construed as capable of supporting a conviction for arrest with intent to compel performance of labor even though the debtor in fact rendered no service after his arrest. Each of the acts enumerated in that proviso, the "holding, arresting, or the returning, may be the subject of indictment and punishment."

Notes

[1] Bailey _v._ Alabama, 219 U.S. 219, 240 (1911).

[2] 16 Wall. 36 (1873).

[3] Ibid. 69, 71-72.

[4] 203 U.S. 1 (1906).

[5] Ibid. 16-17.

[6] Pursuant to its enforcement powers under section 2 of this amendment, Congress, on March 2, 1867 adopted a statute (14 Stat. 546), which is now found in 8 U.S.C.A. -- 56 and 18 U.S.C.A. -- 1581, by the terms of which peonage was prohibited, and persons returning any one to a condition of peonage were subjected to criminal punishment. This statute was upheld in Clyatt _v._ United States, 197 U.S. 207 (1905).

[7] Peonage Cases, 123 F. 671 (1903).

[8] 219 U.S. 219 (1911). Justice Holmes, who was joined by Justice Lurton, dissented on the ground that a State was not forbidden by this amendment from punis.h.i.+ng a breach of contract as a crime. "Compulsory work for no private master in a jail is not peonage."--Ibid. 247.

[9] Ibid. 244.

[10] 235 U.S. 133 (1914).

[11] 315 U.S. 25 (1942).

[12] 322 U.S. 4 (1944). Justice Reed, with Chief Justice Stone concurring, contended in a dissenting opinion that a State is not prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment from "punis.h.i.+ng the fraudulent procurement of an advance in wages."--Ibid. 27.

[13] Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 23-25 (1883); Plessy _v._ Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).

[14] Hodges _v._ United States; 203 U.S. 1 (1906).

[15] Robertson _v._ Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 282 (1897).

[16] Butler _v._ Perry, 240 U.S. 328, 333 (1916).--Work-or-fight laws, such as States enacted during World War I, which required male residents to be employed during the period of that War were sustained on similar grounds, as were munic.i.p.al ordinances, enforced during the Depression, which compelled indigents physically able to perform manual labor to serve the munic.i.p.ality without compensation as a condition of receiving financial a.s.sistance.--State _v._ McClure, 7 Boyce (Del.) 265; 105 A.

712 (1919); Commonwealth _v._ Pouliot, 292 Ma.s.s. 229; 198 N.E. 256 (1935).

[17] Arver _v._ United States (Selective Draft Law Cases), 245 U.S. 366, 390 (1918); United States _v._ Brooks, 54 F. Supp. 995 (1944); affirmed 147 F. (2d) 134 (1945); certiorari denied, 324 U.S. 878 (1945). It may be noted in this connection that labor leaders have contended that conscription of labor in time of war, unaccompanied by nationalization of industry, would mean that the conscripts, having thus been forced by the Government to work for private profit, would be reduced to involuntary servitude. This position is not supported by the precedents.--_See_ Corwin, Total War and the Const.i.tution, 89-90 (1947).

[18] Brown (Marcus) Holding Co. _v._ Feldman, 256 U.S. 170, 109 (1921).