AMENDMENTS 13-15.-CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS. Amendment 13.-SLAVERY.' SECTION 1. 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. SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Slavery and Involuntary Servitude Prohibited In General The meaning of this is as clear as language can make it. The things denounced are slavery and involuntary servitude, and Congress is given power to enforce that denunciation. All understand by these terms a condition of enforced compulsory service of one to another. While the inciting cause of the amendment was the emancipation of the colored race, yet it is not an attempt to commit that race to the care of the Nation. It is the denunciation of a condition and not a declaration in favor of a particular people. It reaches every race and every individual, and if in any respect it commits one race to the Nation it commits every race and every individual thereof. Slavery or involuntary servitude of the Chinese, of the Italian, of the Anglo-Saxon are as much within its compass as slavery or involuntary servitude of the African. Hodges v. U. S., 203 U. S. 1, in which it was held that Revised Statutes, sections 1977, 1978, 1979, 5508, and 5510 gave the United States courts no jurisdiction of a charge of conspiracy within a State to prevent citizens of African descent from making or carrying out contracts to labor, See also Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 24. Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 69. Selective Service Law The selective service act of May 18, 1917, does not contravene this amendment, a soldier not being a slave. Story v. Perkins, 243 Fed. 997, judgment affirmed in Jones v. Perkins, 245 U. S. 390. Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U. S. 366. Prohibiting Tenant Leaving During Term of Lease A State statute which makes it a penal offense where a person who has contracted to labor for or serve another for any given time in the cultivation of land, to leave or abandon the contract, For ratification, see p. 28. Amend. 13.-Slavery. was held to be unconstitutional. It is an attempt to establish a system of peonage, and uses the arm of the law to keep persons in a condition of peonage whenever they abandon the leased premises by coercing performance of the obligation of contracts of labor by involuntary servitude. Peonage Cases, 123 Fed. 671. Franklin v. South Carolina, 218 U. S. 161. As to fraudulent breach of contract of employment, see- Recognition of Distinction Between Races A State statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races-a distinction which is founded in the color of the two races, and which must always exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color-has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 543. Rearrest of Convicted Person for Failure to Work Out Fine and Costs A State statute which authorizes a person convicted of crime to work out the fine and costs with one who has become surety therefor, and which provides that the contract must be kept, under pain of rearrest, and another similar proceeding for its violation, and thus under pain of recurring prosecutions rendering him liable to be kept at labor to satisfy the demands of his employer, is invalid. U. S. v. Reynolds, 235 U. S. 133. Requiring Labor for Repair of Public Highways A statute which requires every able-bodied male person between the ages of 21 and 45 years to work on the roads and bridges for six days in each year, to provide a substitute, or in lieu thereof to pay the overseer the sum of $3, does not impose involuntary servitude within the meaning of this amendment. Butler v. Parry, 240 U. S. 328. The contract of a seaman is not within the spirit of this amendment. Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 281. Power of Congress There is no limitation in this amendment confining the prohibition to the State, but it includes everybody within the jurisdiction of the National Government. Congress is therefore authorized by its provisions to legislate against acts of individuals as well as of the States in all matters necessary for the protection of the rights granted by it. U. S. v. Morris, 125 Fed. 322. Amend. 13.-Slavery. The denial to any person of admission to the accommodations and privileges of an inn, a public conveyance, or a theater, does not subject that person to any form of servitude, or tend to fasten upon him any badge of slavery within the meaning of this provision, and the act of Congress declaring that in the enjoyment of such accommodations and privileges no distinction shall be made between race or color, or between those who have and those who have not been slaves, finds no sanction in this amendment and is unconstitutional in its entirety. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3. Butts v. Merchants Transp. Co., 230 U. S. 126. Amendment 14.-RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. Section 1.-CITIZENSHIP-DUE PROCESS-EQUAL PROTECTION. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Citizenship 2 Leading Cases U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649. Purpose of the Clause The main object of the opening sentence of this amendment was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in the Supreme Court as to the citizenship of free negroes, and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black, and whether formerly slaves or not, born or naturalized in the United States, and owing no allegiance to any alien power, should be citizens of the United States and of the State in which they reside. Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U. S. 101. Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 73. 1 For ratification of this amendment, see p. 29. See also Art. IV, sec. 2, d. 1, p. 507. Amend. 14.-Rights of Citizens Sec. 1.-Citizenship Its In U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark (169 U. S. 676) it was said: It is declaratory in form and enabling and extending in effect. main purpose doubtless was, as has been often recognized by this court, to establish the citizenship of free negroes, which had been denied in the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Taney in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) (19 How. 393), and to put it beyond doubt that all blacks, as well as whites, born or naturalized within the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens of the United States. But the opening words "All persons born" are general, not to say universal, restricted only by place and jurisdiction, and not by color or race. Prohibition on States In general. The prohibitions of this section have reference to State action exclusively. Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 318. Hodges v. U. S., 203 U. S. 1. On all State agencies.-These provisions have reference to actions of the political body denominated a State, by whatever instruments or in whatever modes that action may be taken. A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way. The constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Whoever, by virtue of public position under a State government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty, without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition; and as he acts in the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State's power, his act is that of the State. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 346. See also Home Telephone, etc., Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278. Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 45. Missouri v. Dockery, 191 U. S. 165. Reagan v. Farmers' Loan, etc., Co., 154 U. S. 390. Raymond v. Chicago Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20. Reinman v. Little Rock, 237 U. S. 171. Owensboro Waterworks Co. v. Owensboro, 200 U. S. 38. Not applicable to wrongful action of individuals.—Civil rights, such as are guaranteed by the Constitution against State aggression, can not be impaired by the wrongful act of individuals, unsupported by State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings. The wrongful act of an individual, unsupported by any such authority, is simply a private wrong, or a crime of that individual; an invasion of the rights of the injured party, it is true, whether they affect his person, his property, or his reputation; but if not sanctioned in some way by the State, or not done under State authority, his Amend. 14.-Rights of Citizens Sec. 1.--Citizenship rights remain in full force, and may presumably be vindicated by resort to the laws of the State for redress. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 17. Siler v. Louisville, etc., R. Co., 213 U. S. 175. Applicability to District of Columbia.-It is conceded that the constitutional provision does not purport to extend to authority exercised by the United States, but it does not follow that Congress, in exercising its power of legislation within and for the District of Columbia, may, therefore, deny to persons residing therein the equal protection of the laws. Lappin v. District of Columbia, 22 App. Cas. (D. C.) 68. Although it has been vigorously asserted that the rights specified in the first eight amendments are among the privileges and immunities protected by the fourteenth amendment, and although this view has been defended by many distinguished jurists, including several justices of the Federal Supreme Court, that court holds otherwise and asserts that is is the character of the right claimed, whether specified as above or not, that is controlling. Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581. Distinction Between Residence and Citizenship Residence and citizenship are wholly different things within the meaning of the Constitution and the laws defining and regulating the jurisdiction of the circuit court of the United States. Steigleder v. McQuesten, 198 U. S. 143. Although this amendment declares that citizens of the United States are citizens of the States in which they reside, there may be a temporary residence in one State, with intent to return to another, which will not create citizenship in the former. Bradwell v. Illinois, 16 Wall. 130. There is nothing in this clause which requires and justifies a rule that "the bare averment of the residence of the parties is sufficient, prima facie, to show jurisdiction" when the jurisdiction bears upon the citizenship of the parties. Robertson v. Cease, 97 U. S. 650. Definition of "Citizen " In general.-The Constitution nowhere defines the meaning of the word "citizen," either by way of inclusion or exclusion, except in so far as this is done by the affirmative declaration in this amendment. In this respect, as in other respects, it must be interpreted in the light of the common law, the principles and history of which were familiarly known to the framers of the Constitution. U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 654. 12703°--S. Doc. 157, 68-1-45 |