Law Commons^™

The Thirteenth Amendment And One Hundred And Fifty Years Of Struggle To Criminalize Slavery: A First Amendment Challenge To The Forced Labor Act (18 U.S.C. § 1589), Niles Stefan Illich

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

The Second Founding And The First Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Constitutional doctrine generally proceeds from the premise that the original intent and public understanding of pre-Civil War constitutional provisions carries forward unchanged from the colonial Founding era. This premise is flawed because it ignores the Nation’s Second Founding: i.e., the constitutional moment culminating in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and the civil rights statutes enacted pursuant thereto. The Second Founding, in addition to providing specific new individual rights and federal powers, also represented a fundamental shift in our constitutional order. The Second Founding’s constitutional regime provided that the underlying systemic rules and norms of the First Founding’s Constitution …

From Common Law To Constitution, Sanctioned Dispossession And Subjugation Through Otherization And Discriminatory Classification, Mobolaji Oladeji

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

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 …

A Comparative Analysis Of Unconscious And Institutional Discrimination In The United States And Britain, Leland Ware

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Thirteenth Amendment And Constitutional Change, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

This article builds upon remarks the author originally delivered at the Nineteenth Annual Derrick Bell Lecture on Race in American Society at NYU Law in November of 2014. The Article describes the history and purpose of the Thirteenth Amendment’s proscription of the badges and incidents of slavery and argues that an understanding of the Amendment's context and its Framers' intent can provide the basis for a more progressive vision for advancing civil rights. The Article discusses how the Thirteenth Amendment could prove to be more effective in addressing persisting forms of inequality that have escaped the reach of the Equal …

The Promises Of Freedom: The Contemporary Relevance Of The Thirteenth Amendment, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

This article, an expanded version of the author's remarks at the 2013 Honorable Clifford Scott Green Lecture at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, illuminates the history and the context of the Thirteenth Amendment. This article contends that the full scope of the Thirteenth Amendment has yet to be realized and offers reflections on why it remains an underenforced constitutional norm. Finally, this article demonstrates the relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment to addressing contemporary forms of racial inequality and subordination.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Thirteenth Amendment Scholars In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellee And Affirmance, William M. Carter Jr., Dawinder S. Sidhu, Alexander Tsesis, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Amici Briefs

In the case of United States v. Hatch, the defendant in a hate crimes prosecution brought the first major challenge to the constitutionality of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This amicus brief argues that the Act is constitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment.

The Thirteenth Amendment And Pro-Equality Speech, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment’s Framers envisioned the Amendment as providing federal authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The freemen and their descendants are the most likely to be burdened with the effects of stigma, stereotypes, and structural discrimination arising from the slave system. Because African Americans are therefore the most obvious beneficiaries of the Amendment’s promise to eliminate the legacy of slavery, it is often mistakenly assumed that federal power to eradicate the badges and incidents of slavery only permits remedies aimed at redressing the subordination of African Americans. While African Americans were the primary victims of slavery …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Interest Convergence, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment was intended to eliminate the institution of slavery and to eliminate the legacy of slavery. Having accomplished the former, the Amendment has only rarely been extended to the latter. The Thirteenth Amendment’s great promise therefore remains unrealized.

This Article explores the gap between the Thirteenth Amendment’s promise and its implementation. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, this Article argues that the relative underdevelopment of Thirteenth Amendment doctrine is due in part to a lack of perceived interest convergence in eliminating what the Amendment’s Framers called the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The theory of interest convergence, in its …

Race, Rights, And The Thirteenth Amendment: Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Supreme Court has held that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude and also empowers Congress to end any lingering "badges and incidents of slavery." The Court, however, has failed to provide any guidance as to defining the badges and incidents of slavery when Congress has failed to identify a condition or form of discrimination as such. This has led the lower courts to conclude that the judiciary's role under the Thirteenth Amendment is limited to enforcing only the Amendment's prohibition of literal enslavement.

This article has two primary objectives. First, it offers an interpretive framework for defining …

Judicial Review Of Thirteenth Amendment Legislation: 'Congruence And Proportionality' Or 'Necessary And Proper'?, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment has relatively recently been rediscovered by scholars and litigants as a source of civil rights protections. Most of the scholarship focuses on judicial enforcement of the Amendment in lawsuits brought by individuals. However, scholars have paid relatively little attention as of late to the proper scope of congressional action enforcing the Amendment. The reason, presumably, is that it is fairly well settled that Congress enjoys very broad authority to determine what constitutes either literal slavery or, to use the language of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., a "badge or incident of slavery" falling within the Amendment's …

Better Late Than Never: A Takings Clause Solution To Reparations, Yanessa L. Barnard

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

A Thirteenth Amendment Framework For Combating Racial Profiling, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

Law enforcement officers’ use of race to single persons out for criminal suspicion (“racial profiling”) is the subject of much scrutiny and debate. This Article provides a new understanding of racial profiling. While scholars have correctly concluded that racial profiling should be considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and existing federal statutes, this Article contends that the use of race as a proxy for criminality is also a badge and incident of slavery in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Racial profiling is not only a denial of the right to equal treatment, but …

Splitting The Atom Or Splitting Hairs - The Hate Crimes Prevention Act Of 1999 Note., Andrew M. Gilbert, Eric D. Marchand

St. Mary's Law Journal

Problems of bias-motivated violence plague our nation and threaten to erase the progress made during the civil rights era. Recent statistical surveys conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicate the number of hate crimes has generally increased over the past few years. In 1996, over 11,000 individuals were victims of hate crimes—five percent more than reported the previous year. Hate crimes are not only injurious to the individual victim, but also fracture surrounding communities and create disharmony among citizens. As a result, some states implemented legislation in the 1980s to deter hate-motived crimes and a few states have …

Reflections On From Slaves To Citizens Bondage, Freedom And The Constitution: The New Slavery Scholarship And Its Impact On Law And Legal Historiography, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

The thesis of Professor Donald Nieman's paper, "From Slaves to Citizens: African-Americans, Rights Consciousness, and Reconstruction," is that the nation experienced a revolution in the United States Constitution and in the consciousness of African Americans. According to Professor Nieman, the Reconstruction Amendments represented "a dramatic departure from antebellum constitutional principles,"' because the Thirteenth Amendment reversed the pre-Civil War constitutional guarantee of slavery and "abolish[ed] slavery by federal authority." The Fourteenth Amendment rejected the Supreme Court's "racially-based definition of citizenship [in Dred Scott v. Sandford4], clearly establishing a color-blind citizenship” and the Fifteenth Amendment "wrote the principle of equality into the …

The Natural Law Tradition On The Modern Supreme Court: Not Burke, But The Enlightenment Tradition Represented By Locke, Madison, And Marshall., R. Randall Kelso

St. Mary's Law Journal

A traditional common-law style of judicial decisionmaking exists which was present at this nation’s founding. This common law style is derived from natural law tradition. And this tradition stands as an alternative to the formalism of Justice Scalia or the Holmesian style of Chief Justice Rehnquist. This natural law style, with its focus on the religious and communitarian ethical tradition, was the dominant view of judicial interpretation for the framing and ratifying generation of the original Constitution and the Civil War Amendments. The decisionmaking style of Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter appears to have great affinity with this traditional common-law …

Capital Punishment: The Humanistic And Moral Issues Address., Helen Prejean

St. Mary's Law Journal

Death row reminds us that justice is not equal. Death sentences, opposed to being reserved for only the most heinous crimes, are generally related to the profile of the victim and identity of those most outraged by the crime. The majority of people on death row killed a white person, even though one-half of homicide victims in the United States are people of color. Because of this, and the fact that the law almost always sides with people of wealth and power, the death penalty works to compound societal trauma instead of healing or solving anything. The skewed and harmful …

The Evolution Of Government Liability Under Section 1983., Christopher J.M. Pettit

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides in order to enforce the law, Congress shall have the power to pass enabling legislation. In the exercise of this power, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1871, to implement the prohibition of slavery as required by the Thirteenth Amendment. Although the Thirteenth Amendment abolished the institution of slavery, discriminatory actions by private citizens remained prevalent. During the period following reconstruction, congressional legislation shifted focus from prohibiting state action to prohibiting the actions of private individuals who violated the civil liberties of others. Through the passage of the Civil Rights …