HKB
Enforcement
"* * * this amendment, besides abolishing 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 * * * circumstances 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. Sec. 56 and 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 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 punishing 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 "punishing 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).