Amendment XIII


     "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 and place subject to their jurisdiction

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

    The nature of this amendment, although a breakthrough for the racial inequality for our country of the time, also left a grey area that any person convicted of a crime can be a slave or an involuntary servant. The nature of this allows the government the option of using inmates and criminals of the time as slaves if they thought it was appropriate for the crime. Since the ratification of the 13th Amendment no change has been made to the loophole to the national constitution, however in 2020 a new amendment called the "Modern Abolition Amendment" was proposed to do such things. With our constitution and its amendments being so heavily guarded it did not pass through a bipartisan vote, so instead many states introduced it into their own smaller constitution in an effort to eliminate forced labor.



    This video shows the reasons behind the 13th amendment and why it was so big at the time of ratification, not only did it solidify the previous emancipation proclamation it made it so that even if a new state were to join slavery would be abolished there unless a person were "duly convicted of a crime".

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