The Loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment

BY CLAIRE DAWSON AND MORGAN MONTOYA

In school, Americans have been taught that slavery ended on December 5, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified across the U.S. However, did slavery really end in America? 

After the Union won the Civil War, American officials were scared about revenue loss. So when the Thirteenth Amendment was drafted, Congress added a loophole. “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.” Money has been a driving force in America since its beginning, and slavery was fueled by racism and greed for economic status. Losing that status and the control over Black Americans terrified lawmakers in both the North and the South. 

Prior to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, the South produced 75% of the world’s cotton and housed nearly 700,000 enslaved people (Timmons, 2018). Slave labor was an integral part of the Southern economy; so much so that the Confederacy went to war to keep it that way. After the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, that labor (and flow of cash that resulted) declined. Considering slave labor was so instrumental to the South, not having it was a huge loss of profit. 

Without the slave labor that upheld the South’s economy, it had no power.
Within the Thirteenth Amendment, a loophole was put in place to address this loss. This loophole states that involuntary servitude is illegal EXCEPT for punishment of crime. So what did the country do? It found a new way to enslave African Americans. “After the Civil War, new offenses...were vague, and could be a felony or misdemeanor depending on the supposed severity of behavior. These laws sent more Black people to prison than ever before, and by the late 19th century the country experienced its first ‘prison boom (Little, 2018).”  These offenses, called “black codes” gave justification for arresting Black people on the basis of minor infractions like ‘not showing proper respect’. The criminal justice system was made to force African Americans back into white control, and because of the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment, it was legal. 

Black prisoners were employed in a practice called “convict-leasing”, where white planters and industrialists were “leased” prisoners to work for them, all within the bounds of punishment for the crime exception as laid out in the Thirteenth Amendment. The state and businesses made money off of this prison labor, but the prisoners did not. So essentially, the government had rebranded slavery, and these Black prisoners had to pay the price for decades after the Civil War.

Recommendation: To learn more about the 13th Amendment, see the Netflix documentary at https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 .

Sources:
https://www.bustle.com/articles/142340-5-ways-the-us-prison-industrial-complex-mimics-slaverDoes an Exception Clause in the 13th Amendment Still Permit
https://www.centeronhumanrightseducation.org/u-s-prison-labor-legacy-american-slavery/ 
https://www.history.com/news/slavery-profitable-southern-economy