Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Term Paper Example

TITLE (in capital letters) Student’s Name Student ID Class Number Professor’s Name Educational Institution Date Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution Introduction This amendment forbids slavery and instinctive servitude, on all circumstances save for punishment for a crime. It was passed on April 8, 1864 by the Senate, on January 31, 1865 by the house, and was finally adopted in 1865 the 6th of December. The secretary of State William H. Seward on December 18th publicly stated its adoption being the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments that were adopted after the American Civil War. The relevance of this topic to me as a Business Law student is to have a well-founded understanding of the laws relating to labor and the rights of individuals in the execution of their duties. The paper begins by presentation of a brief history of the Thirteenth amendment and what propagated its rolling out. It further proceeds to explain how and what the motivating factors were, that enabled Lincoln to push through to the passing of the thirteenth amendment (Abramson & Pinkerton, 2003). The period around the upcoming of the proposal for this amendment as well as what happened after its adoption is also explained. Some law aspects are also discussed and then finally, a general conclusion is made. History of Thirteenth amendment In a period of more than 60 years, there had been no new amendments and then a proposal for the thirteenth amendment came. The former amendments were implemented within 15 years of the adoption of the original constitution. The Bill of Rights, which comprises of the first ten amendments, were adopted in 1971 while the eleventh amendment’s adoption was in 1795 and the twelfth amendment in 1804. Prior to the Civil War outbreak and during the secession crisis, many of slavery-related bills had guarded slavery. Slave importation had been ceased in the United States and a military intervention was underway in opposition to the Atlantic slave trade. A small number of proposals had been made to put an end to domestic slavery as well as domestic slave trade (Williams, 2002). A Proposal was made in 1839 by Representative John Quincy Adams; however, no more new proposals were presented till 1863 14th, December. This was when there was a Bill to maintain an amendment for the abolishment of slavery throughout the whole United States. Representative James Mitchell Ashley, an Ohio Republican introduced it. It was shortly followed by a related proposal made by a Lowan Republican, Representative James F. Wilson. In due course, it came to the notice of the Congress and as well the public of these proposals, and there was an increment of the legislative proposals that were forwarded. Senator John B. Henderson from Missouri in January 11, 1864, made a submission of a joint resolution for a constitutional amendment that was to prohibit slavery. This slavery abolition historically had been attributed to Republicans now considering that Henderson was a War Democrat. Chaired by Lyman Trumbul, an Illinois Republican, the Senate Judiciary Committee was now engrossed in the amalgamation of diverse proposals for an amendment. On the same year February 8th, Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Radical Republican, also presented another proposal for a constitutional amendment against slavery and the guaranteeing of equality. With this continued and growing number of proposal presented as well as their expansion in scope, Senate Judiciary Committee presented an amended proposal to the Senate combining the drafts of Henderson, Ashley and Wilson. By a vote of 38 to 6, the Senate passed the amendment in 1864 April the 8th. However, the House refused to do so. Representative Ashley reintroduced it and President Lincoln actively took a role in working in order for the proposal to pass through the House by guaranteeing that it was included in the Republican Party Platform for the then imminent Presidential elections. His efforts bore fruit when the Bill was passed by the House on January 31, 1865 in a vote of 119 to 56. This amendment’s documentation has an evident presidential signature below the customary ones of the Houses’ Speaker and the Senate’s President, just immediately after the words ‘Approved February 1, 1865.’ It was then sent to the State Legislatures, and in 1865 18th of December, William H. Seward, the Senate President, announced the adoption of the amendment as December 6, 1865, the day when Georgia’s 36 states were ratified to 27. This amendment did away with slavery in the United States that began with issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation by the then President, Abraham Lincoln in 1863. However, after the adoption of the amendment, there was selective enforcement of certain laws like the laws against vagrancy which led to a continuation of the blacks being subjected to involuntary servitude in some of the areas (Abramson & Pinkerton, 2003). How Lincoln managed to pass the thirteenth amendment Lincoln viewed the slavery institution in America as an immoral stain in the nation’s soul. He saw it as a blemish that totally was supposed to be done away with in order for the country to realize and exploit its full potential. In his speeches, he explained about his father, who was no saint but who was never for support of slavery. Even though his father was an owner of a plantation, it was crystal clear to him that he could never compare to those who enslaved the blacks in their plantations. His father shaped his attitude for advocating against the perpetration of slavery in the United States. In 1865, there were a lot of political corruption, rampant bitter battles, and backdoors in the passing of the amendment bill of the constitution. This he noticed after realizing the elapse of time since he signed the emancipation proclamation and things weren’t going on well. It is then that he realized that in order to most assuredly end slavery and ensure its burial, it was imperative to have it prescribed in the nation’s founding document so that it would always be known that in the United States, there shall be no one human being owning the other (Williams, 2002). Lincoln really struggled with racial inequalities. He was an advocate of equality regardless of the racial affiliations held. For him to accomplish his goal in passing the thirteenth amendment, Lincoln had to deceive, cheat and lie which not only risked his reputation, but also his position as the president. However hard it is to believe this, Lincoln was on the forefront in fighting for the discrimination of blacks and slavery besides the fact that he was white. This was a time of racial prejudice. He may have struggled with racial biases that were personal, like the fact that blacks and whites could learn in the same school, or compete for similar jobs; but deep down he knew that the ending of slavery was a very prime step in the attainment of something better for the blacks (Miller, 2012). Karl Marx described Lincoln as a man who couldn’t be intoxicated by success nor downtrodden by difficulties, who inflexibly pressed on his goal, never to compromise or be blinded by rapidity, who proceeded with slow but mature steps never ever retracing, wouldn’t be swept off his feet by a surge of popularism, he would temper with the shimmers of a kind heart any acts of stern, not easily disheartened by a break of a popular pulse, he would light up dark scenes with a humorous smile, and performed his enormous works with humility and homeliness never ceasing to be good. These were the traits that made him push till the thirteenth amendment was finally passed. A brief explanation of the time around the propositioning and adoption of the thirteenth amendment The issue of slavery had been debated hotly by the delegates of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. A George Mason from Virginia is said to have eloquently argued in opposition to slavery and sternly warned fellow delegates that every slave master was born a petty tyrant. He warned them that the sins of national calamities are punished by providence. Conversely, delegates from the South strenuously argued that the new government wasn’t supposed to obstruct in the slavery institution. For instance, from South Carolina, Delegate John Rutledge told the delegates that religion and humanity didn’t have anything to do with the questions as to whether the constitution was to shield slavery, claiming that it simply was a property rights’ question (Slobogin, 2007). The then Constitution proposed by the delegates had several stipulations that unambiguously identified and guarded property. The Southern Delegates wouldn’t support the constitution in the absence of those stipulations and without them on board; there was no chance for the ratification of the constitution. This can closely be linked to the fact that the Southern States were allowed by such stipulations to counts slaves as 3/5 persons with the intention of the Congress apportionment having it in mind that the slaves could not vote anyway. This to some extent refuted the Congress of their power to abolish new slave importation until 1808 as well as stopping the enactment of laws by free states safeguarding fugitive slaves. Therefore, owing to all these facts, up through the Civil War, slavery continued to be a discordant concern. Worried that the balance of Congress would tip against slavery, the Southerners were apprehensive to expand slavery to other territories as well as states (Tsesis, 2004). The 1820 Missouri Compromise, one that was enacted when there was equal representation of the slave and non-slave states was permitting slavery in Missouri but abolished it in parts of the Louisiana north of 36’30. A ruling made by the Supreme Court in a famous decision in Dred Scott v Sandford in1857 was that the Congress missed the power to abolish slavery in its own territories. In regard to this ruling, slave owners were invited by Scott v Sandford to invade the territories and pass constitutions that were promoting slavery. It was this decision that made the Civil War unavoidable (Vorenberg, 2001). In form of writing to the majority in Scott, Roger Taney, the Chief Justice, wound up that all people of African ancestry irrespective of being a slave or not, plus the Scott, could never be ‘citizens’ within the constitution context and as a result were short of the capacity to approach the federal court bringing a suit. Before the end of the Civil war, the thirteenth amendment that prohibited slavery and the involuntary servitude and empowered the Congress to endorse legislation that was appropriate was passed by the Congress and forwarded to the states for ratification. This amendment was understood and made to have the blacks also become United States citizens meaning it overruled Dred Scott. In the vote, the House barely made the 2/3 requirement as the Senates took the lead. On the announcement of the voting, galleries cheered as Capital cannons thundered a 100 gun salute as congressmen held close weeping. In his diary, Congressman George Julian from Indiana wrote that he felt as if he were in a new country ever since the voting. The states consequently ratified and Seward, the secretary of state announced adoption of the amendment in 1865 the 18th of December. Shortly after the thirteenth amendment, Civil Rights Act of 186 was passed by the Congress using their conferred new powers (Taslitz, 2006). This equalized the rights of the blacks in all states to sue, inherit, acquire and sell personal property, be a part of, formulate and put into effect contracts and enjoy equal and full benefits as the whites in regards to the security of the person and property. As supporters of this law claimed, it guaranteed the very appropriations and enforcements of the blacks’ rights so as not to be held in bondage. Quite distinguishing from the other amendments, the thirteenth amendment is quite self-executing. This is especially in the sense that it needs no action from the congress as it directly reaches even throughout the population. In this accordance, the thirteenth amendment therefore bestows the Congress the power to penalize any private conduct. However, under other amendments like the fourteenth, this may not be possible as it restricts the conduct of the state by abolishing it to from refuting law protection that is equal or due process. However, comparing the thirteenth to the fourteenth amendment, the latter has not yielded much Supreme Court orders as the former or even the fifteenth one which guarantees the right to vote by blacks. For instance in a case Butler v Perry 1916, a challenge brought in by Florida man was rejected by the court; it was asking that all men I the age bracket of 21 and 45 years to work for up to 60 hours when called upon for public roads (Tsesis, 2004). In his defense, the plaintiff who had been accused of not giving his time on the roads and sentenced to death said that in the thirteenth amendment, the law mandated against involuntary servitude and that it was purposed to protect such compulsory labor for African slavery. Law aspects related to the thirteenth amendment Since 1947, there had been no prosecutions on offenses related to the thirteenth amendment. There had been psychological coercion that primed as a means to involuntary servitude. In a case in United States v. Kozmiski, 487 U.S 931 (1988), it was ruled by the Supreme Court that the thirteenth amendment did not abolish servitude compulsion by coercion of the psychology. In this case, Kozminski had involuntary servitude limited to the situations only when the master subjected their servants to any actual physical force or threats, any threatened legal coercion that is actual and state-imposed and/or any deceit or fraud that involves a minor servant, the mentally incompetent and an immigrant (Slobogin, 2007). Included in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 were updates of the federal ant-slavery statutes that considered victims enslaved through psychological coercion even in the absence of physical coercion. For clarification, the U.S Courts of Appeals in a case Immediato v. Rye Neck School District, in their ruling held that community service as a requirement for high school graduation wasn’t a violation of the Thirteenth amendment. The thirteenth amendment addressed peonage which refers to a person in debt servitude. The compulsion to this includes the use of force or threat or legal coercion to make someone work against their will (Miller, 2012). It also addressed involuntary servitude which means people are forced to work by being put in a climate of fear through legal coercion, physical and forceful threats. The issue of forced labor was also addressed and this includes abuse of the law, a scheme or plan make a person to believe they’ll be harmed should they refuse to perform a task and any threat or serious physical restraint. Conclusion The thirteenth amendment was passed after a long struggle as the Southerners couldn’t let go of the African slaves (Abramson & Pinkerton, 2003). However, through the persistence of those who were anti-slavery, it finally passed. This brought tremendous change in the United States as all people enjoyed equal rights and freedoms. It also strengthened the power of the Congress in case ruling. References Abramson, P. & Pinkerton, S. (2003). Sexual Rights in America: The Ninth Amendment and the Pursuit of Happiness. New York University Press: New York Gates, H. (2009). Lincoln on Race and Slavery. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ Miller, R. (2012). Lincoln and Leadership: Military, Political, and Religious Decision Making. Fordham University Press: New York Slobogin, C. (2007). Privacy at Risk: The New Government Surveillance and the Fourth Amendment. University of Chicago Press: Chicago Taslitz, A. (2006). Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment: A History of Search and Seizure, 1789-1868. New York University Press: New York Tsesis, A. (2004). The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History. New York University Press: New York Vorenberg, M. (2001). Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England Williams, F. (2002). Judging Lincoln. Southern Illinois University Press: Carbondale, IL Read More