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Class As Caste: The Thirteenth Amendment’S Applicability To Class-Based Subordination, William M. Carter Jr.

Seattle University Law Review

The Thirteenth Amendment currently enjoys a robust renaissance among legal scholars who contend that it provides a judicial remedy for and congressional authority to proscribe the “badges and incidents of slavery.” As discussed below, this interpretation, although not self- evident from the Amendment’s bare text, is well supported by the Amendment’s history and context, the Framers’ explicit intentions, the legislative debates in Congress leading to the Amendment’s adoption, and the contemporaneous legal understanding of the ways in which the Slave Power that had come to dominate and distort American society. This Article briefly explores whether the Thirteenth Amendment applies to …

Class As Caste: The Thirteenth Amendment’S Applicability To Class-Based Subordination, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

As part of a symposium marking the sesquicentennial of the Thirteenth Amendment, this Article briefly explores whether the Thirteenth Amendment applies to class-based subordination. While recognizing that the increasingly rigid class-based stratification of our society, rampant discrimination against the poor, increasing income inequality, and the concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of so few are all pressing social challenges that the legal system must address, this Article concludes that generalized class-based discrimination likely would not fall within the scope of the “badges and incidents of slavery” that the Amendment prohibits.

This Article argues, however, that the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition …