The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.
Involuntary servitude or involuntary slavery is a legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion, to which it may constitute slavery. While laboring to benefit another occurs also in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount. Prison labor is often referred to as involuntary servitude. Prisoners are forced to work for free or for very little money while they carry out their time in the system.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States.
The Constitution of the State of Tennessee defines the form, structure, activities, character, and fundamental rules of the U.S. State of Tennessee.
The Tallmadge Amendment was a proposed amendment to a bill regarding the admission of the Territory of Missouri as a state, under which Missouri would be admitted as a free state. The amendment was submitted in the U.S. House of Representatives on February 13, 1819, by James Tallmadge Jr., a Democratic-Republican from New York, and Charles Baumgardner.
The Maryland Constitution of 1864 was the third of the four constitutions which have governed the U.S. state of Maryland. A controversial product of the Civil War and in effect only until 1867, when the state's present constitution was adopted, the 1864 document was short-lived.
The fugitive slave laws were laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of enslaved people who escaped from one state into another state or territory. The idea of the fugitive slave law was derived from the Fugitive Slave Clause which is in the United States Constitution. It was thought that forcing states to deliver fugitive slaves back to enslavement violated states' rights due to state sovereignty and was believed that seizing state property should not be left up to the states. The Fugitive Slave Clause states that fugitive slaves "shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due", which abridged state rights because forcing people back into slavery was a form of retrieving private property. The Compromise of 1850 entailed a series of laws that allowed slavery in the new territories and forced officials in free states to give a hearing to slave-owners without a jury.
The Constitution of Mississippi is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of Mississippi delineating the duties, powers, structures, and functions of the state government. Mississippi's original constitution was adopted at a constitutional convention held at Washington, Mississippi in advance of the western portion of the territory's admission to the Union in 1817. The current state constitution was adopted in 1890 following the reconstruction period. It has been amended and updated 100 times in since its adoption in 1890, with some sections being changed or repealed altogether. The most recent modification to the constitution occurred in November 2020, when Section 140 was amended, and Sections 141-143 were repealed.
The Constitution of the State of Utah defines the basic form and operation of state government in Utah.
The Reconstruction Amendments, or the Civil War Amendments, are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870. The amendments were a part of the implementation of the Reconstruction of the American South which occurred after the Civil War.
The Constitution of Indiana is the highest body of state law in the U.S. state of Indiana. It establishes the structure and function of the state and is based on the principles of federalism and Jacksonian democracy. Indiana's constitution is subordinate only to the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Prior to the enactment of Indiana's first state constitution and achievement of statehood in 1816, the Indiana Territory was governed by territorial law. The state's first constitution was created in 1816, after the U.S. Congress had agreed to grant statehood to the former Indiana Territory. The present-day document, which went into effect on November 1, 1851, is the state's second constitution. It supersedes Indiana's 1816 constitution and has had numerous amendments since its initial adoption.
Tilikum v. Sea World was a legal case heard in the US Federal Court in 2012 concerning the constitutional standing of an orca. It was brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) on behalf of Tilikum, an orca kept in the SeaWorld Orlando park, against the SeaWorld corporation.
Slavery has been forbidden in the state of Minnesota since that state's admission to the Union in 1858. The second section of the first Article of the state's constitution, drafted in 1857, provides that:
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude from the State otherwise there is the punishment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.
The Oregon black exclusion laws were attempts to prevent black people from settling within the borders of the settlement and eventual U.S. state of Oregon. The first such law took effect in 1844, when the Provisional Government of Oregon voted to exclude black settlers from Oregon's borders. The law authorized a punishment for any black settler remaining in the territory to be whipped with "not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes" for every six months they remained. Additional laws aimed at African Americans entering Oregon were ratified in 1849 and 1857. The last of these laws was repealed in 1926. The laws, born of pro-slavery and anti-black beliefs, were often justified as a reaction to fears of black people instigating Native American uprisings.
Martin Tabert was an American forced laborer. The circumstances of Tabert's death – being a white man beaten to death by an overseer – caused a public reaction that resulted eventually in the end of Florida’s longstanding convict leasing system. Convict leasing was one of the forms of legalized involuntary servitude common in the American South from the 1880s through the 1940s. Pursuant to Section 1 of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, slavery or involuntary servitude remains lawful as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
Colorado Amendment A was a 2018 referendum to amend Article II, Section 26 of the Constitution of Colorado to remove language permitting slavery and involuntary servitude only as punishment for crime.
Polly Strong was an enslaved woman in the Northwest Territory, in present-day Indiana. She was born after the Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery. Slavery was prohibited by the Constitution of Indiana in 1816. Two years later, Strong's mother Jenny and attorney Moses Tabbs asked for a writ of habeas corpus for Polly and her brother James in 1818. Judge Thomas H. Blake produced indentures, Polly for 12 more years and James for four more years of servitude. The case was dismissed in 1819.
Oregon Ballot Measure 112, the Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment, is an amendment to the Constitution of Oregon passed as part of the 2022 Oregon elections. The measure removes the loophole where slavery and involuntary servitude are legal within the state as punishment for a crime. It added language that authorizes an Oregon court or probation or parole agency to order a person convicted of a crime to engage in education, counseling, treatment, community service, or other alternatives to incarceration, as part of sentencing for the crime.
Tennessee state elections in 2022 were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2022. Primary elections for the United States House of Representatives, governorship, Tennessee Senate, and Tennessee House of Representatives, as well as various judicial retention elections, including elections for all five Tennessee Supreme Court justices as well as general local elections, were held on August 4, 2022. There were also four constitutional amendments to the Constitution of Tennessee on the November 8 ballot.
The Tennessee Constitutional Amendment: 3, commonly known as Amendment 3 or the Remove Slavery as Punishment for Crime from Constitution Amendment, is an approved legislatively referred constitutional amendment to the Constitution of Tennessee that appeared on November 8, 2022. The proposed amendment modifies Article I, Section 33 of the Tennessee Constitution, removing the existing provision that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for convicted individuals. Instead, the amendment explicitly states that slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited while allowing inmates to work if they are duly convicted of a crime. The change seeks to clarify and restrict the use of involuntary labor within the state.
