Mitchell McKnight
Prof. Cotti
POLS 1100-090
27 Sept 2020
The Problem with the 13th Amendment
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction” (US Const. amend XIII). While this amendment technically abolished slavery,
there is one key part that allowed for the continuation of involuntary servitude. By adding the
key phrase “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”,
this allowed to US government to continue to oppress and exploit the labor of certain citizens,
specifically black men.
Before the Civil War, slavery played a large role in the southern economy. Plantations
growing tobacco and cotton started to see a huge demand increase, which resulted in a huge
demand increase for slaves. Cotton picking was a labor-intensive task, and the invention of the
cotton gin made people believe the labor would be cut back a bit due to better efficiency.
However, the increased efficiency only grew the demand for cotton, and the slave trade became a
key part of keeping the economy booming (Timmons).
When the Civil War ended, the southern economy took a huge hit. Former slave owners
needed a way to maintain their properties. There were a couple different ways they did this:
Sharecropping and tenant farming, along with a loophole for continued slavery. Sharecropping
was a system in which former plantation owners gave laborers (many former slaves) a portion of
the crop yield in return for the labor (Recchiuti). This practice kept a lot of poor black families in
poverty with not much hope for escaping. Another terrifying reality was coming to fruition: the
selling of criminals to corporations by the state. A new law in a few southern states, referred to
as “vagrancy”, allowed the state to arrest people for not being able to prove employment
(Tarter). After the Civil War, large numbers of African Americans found themselves
unemployed, which resulted in large numbers of African Americans being arrested for this
reason. Remember the special clause in the 13th amendment? Basically, the state knew that many
black people were going to be unemployed directly after being “freed” from slavery, so they
created the Vagrancy Act of 1866 to arrest them. The punishment for the crime was, you guessed
it, involuntary servitude. Initially, the punishment was thirty days of labor. However, if the
person was unable to pay the different fees assessed on every prisoner, the sentence could be
extended indefinitely (Blackmon). Keep in mind all this was happening simultaneously with Jim
Crow laws and segregation.
Toward the end of the 1960s and into the 90s, a new term came into spotlight. The “War
on Drugs” was first coined by Richard Nixon, but the Reagan and Clinton administrations were
where we saw the most damage done. By cracking down on drug use and having more extreme
punishments for drugs that were popular in poor communities (mostly black), the prison
population exploded. Since 1970, the incarceration rate has nearly quadrupled. Most campaigns
in this era were centered around the idea of “law and order” and painted the black man as a
criminal that white America should fear. President Clinton passing mandatory minimums as well
as the Three Strikes Law automatically gave violent criminals life sentences after their third
charge (Couzens). All these laws helped keep as many people in prison for as long as possible, as
well as helped the white man maintain control over black people. Prisons began to be
overwhelmed by the number of inmates. Rather than working on prison reform and trying to help
people get out of the system, the state started passing prisoners to private prisons. From 2000 to
2016, private prison facility population grew 47% (Gotsch and Basti).
Many prisoners are forced to work once incarcerated. Though they technically get paid,
the average hourly wage of an inmate is less than $1.50 per hour, on the generous end (Sawyer).
They are paid even less than they were in 2001, while some states do not even compensate them
for their labor. Also, basic necessities like deodorant and tampons, as well as phone calls and
email time, are not free for inmates. In many cases it costs up to two weeks of work just to afford
a stick of deodorant or five minutes of phone time. The jobs they are working in prison require
skills that usually are not sufficient in today’s job climate, so upon release, many of these people
are left with little to no compensation for their labor. In many states, felons are disqualified from
receiving welfare benefits, so it is very hard for ex-convicts to get back on their feet, often
restarting the cycle of being incarcerated and having their labor exploited. Meanwhile, the CCA
(Corrections Corporation of America) saw $1.64 billion in revenue in 2012 (Kincade).
Involuntary servitude is wrong, regardless of criminal history. The 13th amendment was
important for putting an end to outright slavery, but it could use a re-assessment. The criminal
justice system in the United States is deeply flawed, and the evidence that this stems from racism
and power structures being afraid of black liberation is overwhelming. “We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration
of Independence). If this were true, America would be working much harder to improve the lives
of all its citizens. Prison reform and the rewording of the 13th amendment are absolutely
necessary in a country founded on “freedom”.
Works Cited:
Basti, Kara Gotsch and Vinay, and Ashley Nellis. “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S.
Growth in Private Prisons.” The Sentencing Project, 2 Aug. 2018,
www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-inprivate-prisons/.
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from
the Civil War to World War II. Icon, 2012.
Couzens, J. Richard, and Tricia A Bigelow. “California's Three Strikes Sentencing Law.”
California's Three Strikes Sentencing Law - criminal_justice, May 2017,
www.courts.ca.gov/20142.htm.
Kincade, Brian. “The Economics of the American Prison System.” SmartAsset, SmartAsset, 21
May 2018, smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-american-prison-system.
Recchiuti, John Louis. “The New South (Article).” Khan Academy, Khan Academy,
www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/south-after-civil-war/a/thenew-south.
Sawyer, Wendy. “How Much Do Incarcerated People Earn in Each State?” Prison Policy
Initiative, 10 Apr. 2017, www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/.
Tarter, Contributed by Brent. Vagrancy Act of 1866, 25 Aug. 2015,
www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Vagrancy_Act_of_1866.
Timmons, Greg. “How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South.” History.com, A&E
Television Networks, 6 Mar. 2018, www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southerneconomy.