Dimitra B

How have the interpretations of the Constitution, as well as societal norms and understandings of race, evolved and shaped the Prison Industrial Complex? (And, how do lawyers, advocates, abolitionists, etc. use the Constitution to make arguments concerning the Prison Industrial Complex?)

QUOTES:

“This [13th Amendment convict Clause] means that slavery is completely legal under certain circumstances and is almost expected to be used to punish convicted individuals.” (Mass Incarceration: Slavery Renamed, pg. 44)

“In both slavery and mass incarceration, the bodies are always attached to the institution.” (Mass Incarceration: Slavery Renamed, pg. 48)

Notes Document

Bibliographic Information:

Author: Tsesis, Alexander

Title of article or book: Interpreting the 13th Amendment

Title of publication (if article in magazine, newspaper, or journal): Journal of Constitutional Law

Page numbers (if article in magazine, newspaper, or journal): 1337-1362

Publisher: Penn Law

Date published: July 2009

URL (if applicable): https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1176&context=jcl

Paraphrased Notes: Include Page #s

  • Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer was a case that the Supreme Court ruled on that showed that the 13th Amendment was allowing for congress to act unjustly. (1338)

  • Martin Russell Thayer (a member of the U.S. H.O.R.) believed that the 13th Amendment would allow former slaves to have a completely normal life, as opposed to just freeing them from being sold. He even mocked the idea of it being anything less than. (1340)

  • The Supreme Court stopped Congress from passing any legislation that would have achieved other progressive goals. (1340)

  • The court recognized that Congress needed to pass more laws to ensure that the 13th amendments initial intent was upheld, but it refused to allow congress to “penalize” segregated businesses, even ones providing public services. (1341)

  • Justice Harlan wrote many dissents because he believed that the court was not making decisions that ensured a completely free from slavery life for African Americans.

  • Plessy v. Ferguson regarded segregation as a social not public issue. (1342)

  • The badges and incidents of slavery assist congress in making decisions that follow the 13th amendments promise of universal, civil, and political freedom. (1343)

  • Congress gained authority to prevent private school segregation. (1343)

  • The Supreme Court determined that employees can bring claims against a private employer. (1344)

  • The court began to regard to the Commerce Clause in a more economic way. (1347)

  • Congress relied on the 13th Amendment to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866. (1351)

  • The 13th Amendment can be used in many ways to pass legislation regarding things unrelated to race, such as gender. (1356) 

Direct quotes: Include Page #s

  • “The notion that the Thirteenth Amendment meant to do no more than free slaves was a revisionist concept spread by opponents of reconstruction.” (1339)

  • “The decision auspiciously found that the Thirteenth Amendment did not grant Congress authority to prohibit discrimination in public places of accommodation. That outcome heralded judicial countenance of Jim Crow laws that persisted until 1954.” (1341)

  • “The scope of the Amendment, therefore, encompasses liberty interests far beyond receiving reasonable compensation for work.” (1344)

  • “The implication of this line of cases is that Congress can go still further in protecting fundamental rights by passing laws pursuant to its Section 2 power. Courts can review the constitutionality of such laws by assessing whether they are legitimate means for ending discrimination that Congress found to be rationally related to the incidents of involuntary servitude.” (1345)

  • “Congress has traditionally relied on its Commerce Clause authority to pass statutes affecting individual rights. The Fourteenth Amendment has likewise provided a foundation for protecting the general welfare, especially through judicial identification of fundamental rights. The Supreme Court has recently diminished the ability of the federal government to use these two constitutional provisions to pass civil rights legislation.” (1345)

  • “The motel [Heart of Atlanta Motel] claimed that by forcing it to rent accommodations to racially undesired customers Congress had subjected it to involuntary servitude.”

  • “The consensus among Democrats and Republicans was that the “mountain of data” they had collected showed that gender violence had a substantial effect on interstate commerce...By rejecting this massive evidence, the Court further diminished Congress’s ability to pass civil rights legislation. The Court rejected conclusions drawn from the gathered data because gender motivated crimes ‘are not, in any sense of the phrase, economic activity.’” (1347)

  • “The recent Supreme Court decisions have made it clear that using the Commerce Clause to set civil rights policy is vulnerable to economic counterarguments.” (1348)

  • “‘Judges with a states’ rights leaning are likely to require a high burden of proof about the magnitude of interstate commerce involvement rather than relying on congressional findings. In the case of violence against women, years of documentation proved to be insufficiently persuasive. If a new version of VAWA were to rely on Thirteenth Amendment analysis, on the other hand, proving that violence against even one woman related to the subordination of involuntary servitude would suffice to secure a conviction.” (1348)

  • “‘Slavery and involuntary servitude were enforced, both prior to and after the adoption of the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, through widespread public and private violence directed at persons because of their race, color, or ancestry, or perceived race, color, or ancestry.’” (1350)

  • “The most effective Thirteenth Amendment statutes currently available primarily regulate incidents and badges of involuntary servitude that violate contractual and property ownership interests. But much more can be done. Congress has not nearly exhausted its authority to pass ‘effective legislation’ that is rationally related to the Amendment’s purposes.” (1353)

  • “‘Congress possesses an almost unlimited power to protect individual rights under the Thirteenth Amendment. Seemingly, Congress is free, within the broad limits of reason, to recognize whatever rights it wishes, define the infringement of those rights as a form of domination or subordination and thus an aspect of slavery, and proscribe such infringement as a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.’” (1354)

Summary of Source (2-4 sentences)

This source focused on the 13th amendment and its uses. It spoke on how the 13th amendment can be used to create new legislation that furthers its efforts. I also mentioned specific cases regarding to different uses of the 13th amendment. 

Does this help me answer my question? Why or why not?

I think that part of the source did, but a lot of it focused overall on what the 13th amendment can do, and not just the clause allowing convict leasing, which is my focus. Overall, I think it gave me a good understanding of what the 13th amendment does and its evolution, which will be helpful in the future, but it didn’t really answer my question.

Lingering Questions

Why hasn’t congress passed more laws now?

Connections to other sources

Not yet.

JRPS, Division 4Betsy Goldman