US Constitution Makes Allowances for Slavery

Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865.

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.

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


www.usconstitution.net...

I am researching the Constitution, as all Americans have the responsibility to do, and came across this interesting fact about the 13th Amendment. The bold face was added by me to draw attention to what caught my eye. It states slavery, or involuntary servitude can be used as a form of punishment against those found duly convicted. In this age of the Terror Scare, the Patriot Act, and a heady executive branch I found it almost threatening. Say an act of terror occurs again, and those who are not "with us" are found quilty of some minor infraction of the law. Next come GetMo style camps, and as posted above the constitution already makes allowances for slavery to be used as punishment. I know this going out a far reaching hypothetical limb, but I felt it was my duty to bring attention to it.

wow, thats kind of shocking, but i would have expected it.
so i guess the best thing to do is not get caught. or simply conform, which i cant see being fun. as usual it will be the rich enslaving the poor.

"as a punishment for crime"

involuntary servitude is granted to those that wish not to be model citizens. Per the Constitution, we are all free people... however, that doesn't mean we're free to commit crimes.

Lesser crimes get community service as a means to "encourage" those that break the laws not to.

Higher crimes (felonies)(and dependent on which one) get forced hard labor (differentiates by State) as those being convicted of such high crimes lose their rights.

That's the way the US works. You've got your rights, until you infringe upon someone else's. Most complaints, as history has shown, come from the 1st Amendment... not being forced to work because you broke the law.

I think it's a good thing. You chose not to be part of our society... and you take away from someone else... then by all means... give something back to society.

Infoholic is 100% correct (for once )

Although most states have moved away from non-voluntary prison labor, it still does exist and has been used a lot in the past. If this exemption did not exist, a strict reading would say that prisoners couldn't be made to work at all, even just to clean up after themselves.

[edit on 8/11/2007 by djohnsto77]

I remember the chain gangs here in the south when I was growing up and my city, Roanoke Va still uses inmates (granted inmates with a "good" record) to do work around the city cleaning up parks and the like.

In my county, the Sheriff will send out Trustees to work on city or county clean up trouble spots.

Now these Trustees must be fed well, have water and breaks.
Each state has it's own Statutes addressing this issue.

roper