The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments: Involuntary Servitude, Peonage and Citizenship

The Thirteenth Amendment text

Lawtopolis publishes this discussion for informational and educational purposes, and as an exercise of the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, belief and religion protected by the First Amendment. It sets out what each statute and decision says and what courts have done with it. It is not legal advice and does not recommend any course of action.

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.

U.S. Const. amend. XIII (1865)

The amendment abolished slavery outright and also barred involuntary servitude. Its one exception is punishment for a crime after conviction, which is why prison labor remains lawful.

Is servitude by contract allowed?

Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219 (1911)

The plain intention was to abolish slavery of whatever name and form and all its badges and incidents; to render impossible any state of bondage; to make labor free, by prohibiting that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit which is the essence of involuntary servitude.

Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219, 241 (1911)

What the case was about: Alabama made it a crime to take a wage advance and then quit, treating quitting as evidence of fraud. That trapped workers in debt labor. The Court struck the law down.

Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207 (1905)

Peonage is sometimes classified as voluntary or involuntary, but this implies simply a difference in the mode of origin, but none in the character of the servitude. The one exists where the debtor voluntarily contracts to enter the service of his creditor.

Clyatt v. United States, 197 U.S. 207, 215 (1905)

What the case was about: The Court upheld the federal peonage statutes, which forbid holding anyone to labor to work off a debt.

How it applies: Clyatt directly answers the “voluntary servitude” reading: labor compelled to pay a debt is prohibited even when the worker first agreed to it. Congress’s 1867 Peonage Act (42 U.S.C. § 1994) voids state laws enforcing “the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons,” and 18 U.S.C. § 1581 makes peonage a federal crime.

Pollock v. Williams, 322 U.S. 4 (1944)

The undoubted aim of the Thirteenth Amendment as implemented by the Antipeonage Act was not merely to end slavery but to maintain a system of completely free and voluntary labor throughout the United States.

Pollock v. Williams, 322 U.S. 4, 17 (1944)

What the case was about: Florida made it a crime to take an advance and fail to work it off. The Court struck the law down.

What involuntary servitude covers

Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328 (1916) and United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931 (1988)

… the term involuntary servitude was intended to cover those forms of compulsory labor akin to African slavery which in practical operation would tend to produce like undesirable results. It introduced no novel doctrine with respect of services always treated as exceptional, and certainly was not intended to interdict enforcement of those duties which individuals owe to the State, such as services in the army, militia, on the jury, etc.

Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328, 332–333 (1916)

What the case was about: Butler upheld a Florida law requiring men to work six days a year on public roads. Kozminski held that involuntary servitude requires compulsion “by the use or threatened use of physical or legal coercion.”

How it applies: Civic duties such as jury service and military service are not involuntary servitude. Ordinary contracts for work are not either, because a worker can quit and face, at most, a lawsuit for damages — not forced labor.

The Fourteenth Amendment and the “corporate citizen”

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1 (1868)

The Fourteenth Amendment defined national citizenship for the first time and set aside Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which had denied citizenship to Black Americans. The cases the essay quotes — United States v. Anthony, the Slaughter-House Cases, Cruikshank, McDonel, Tashiro, Crosse and Jones v. Temmer — are reviewed word for word in state citizen vs. U.S. citizen. They confirm two distinct citizenships, held by the same person at the same time.

“Ens legis” means “a creature of the law; an artificial being, as contrasted with a natural person. Applied to corporations, considered as deriving their existence entirely from the law” (Black’s Law Dictionary, 2d ed.).

Birth certificates, legal personality and ens legis

A birth certificate is created by the state. Each state’s vital statistics law requires births to be reported and registered, and the state registrar issues the certificate as an official record of the birth, the name and the parents. The registration is a government act and the certificate is a government document.

Legal personality is also a real concept that courts use every day. It means the capacity to hold legal rights and duties. The law gives legal personality to every human being as a natural person, and it also creates artificial persons — the ens legis — such as corporations, counties and the state itself. Courts identify each party by a legal name, and the state records that name at birth.

The theory holds that the state’s registration of a birth creates a second, artificial person — an ens legis carrying the name — that the state then deals with in commerce. Courts that have ruled on the argument, such as the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Benabe (2011) and the Court of Federal Claims in Gravatt v. United States (2011), treated the birth record and the legal name as referring to the human being, not to a separate entity; see “strawman” and the all-capitals name. In the decisions we reviewed, citizenship is treated as a status of the person rather than a separate legal being.

How to check the Thirteenth Amendment claim yourself

If someone offers you a strategy built on Thirteenth Amendment, ask for the court decisions that accepted it. In the decisions cited on this page, courts did not accept it. Instead, read the real statute or rule the claim cites, and then read how courts have applied it. Also, look at the cases listed above. They show what happens when people raise the argument in court. For a real dispute, talk to a licensed attorney in your state. You can start with our directory.

Sources and further reading

Official sources used on this page:

• law.cornell.edu
• static.case.law
• static.case.law
• law.cornell.edu
• law.cornell.edu

Related reading on Lawtopolis:

• State Citizen vs. U.S. Citizen: Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship and "Non-Citizen Nationals"
• "Everything in Public Is by Contract": Consent, Licenses and Contract Theory
• "Strawman" and the All-Capital-Letters Name