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65 records: the cases from Dred Scott to Mortis v. Polis, the constitutions and organic acts, the statutes and regulations, the treaties, the reports and articles. Search by name, citation, or subject; filter by type, era, jurisdiction, and topic; sort by date. Hosted copies are public-domain or licensed texts; every record links to its official source. Records marked with a later treatment say how the authority stands today.
The Resources page keeps the same documents in reading order. Corrections: info@abolishslavery.us.
1787, with the Bill of Rights and Amendments. Amendment XIII, 1865.
The whole instrument, so the exception is read in its place: Article I, Section 2 and the three-fifths clause; Article IV, Section 2 and the fugitive clause; Amendment XIII with the exception; Amendment XIV, Section 2. The exception did not preserve a metaphor. It preserved state power.
ConstitutionUnited StatesThe clause
13 N.C. (2 Dev.) 263 (1829)
A hirer who shot a slave who ran from a whipping was held not indictable for battery: "The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect." Ruffin, J. The plainest judicial statement of the powers of ownership as the slave regime understood them.
Treatment Historical. The regime it describes was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.
CaseNorth CarolinaHistorical casesThe definition
40 U.S. (15 Pet.) 518 (1841)
Africans seized and carried on the schooner Amistad were held free persons, not property, because their enslavement was unlawful under Spanish law. Story, J.
Treatment Historical.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical cases
41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 539 (1842)
The federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 upheld and a Pennsylvania personal-liberty law struck: the power over fugitive rendition held exclusively federal. Story, J.
Treatment Historical; the Fugitive Slave Clause was rendered dead letter by the Thirteenth Amendment.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause
20 N.J.L. 368 (N.J. Sup. Ct. 1845), affirmed 21 N.J.L. 699 (Err. & App. 1848).
The only New Jersey ruling on slavery as such. The 1844 Constitution declared all persons "by nature free and independent." The court held that declaration did not abolish slavery, which "existed by law in this state" when the constitution took effect.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)
Persons of African descent held not citizens; Congress held unable to bar slavery in the territories. Taney, C.J.; McLean and Curtis, JJ., dissenting. The baseline the Thirteenth Amendment was written against.
Treatment Overridden by the Thirteenth (1865) and Fourteenth (1868) Amendments. History, not law.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause
Ratified December 6, 1865.
"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."
ConstitutionUnited StatesThe clause
24 F. Cas. 337 (C.C.D. Md. 1867) (No. 14,247)
Chief Justice Chase, sitting on circuit, discharged Elizabeth Turner, a Black child bound as an apprentice to her former master two days after Maryland's 1864 constitution abolished slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment "establishes freedom as the constitutional right of all persons," and the indenture, lacking the protections Maryland gave white apprentices, violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Treatment The first reported federal decision enforcing the Thirteenth Amendment against a post-emancipation labor arrangement. Current in principle.
CaseMarylandHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude
62 Va. (21 Gratt.) 790 (1871)
A leased-out convict tried in Richmond for killing a guard; the court, deciding a venue question, called the convict "the slave of the State" and "civiliter mortuus." Reasoning, not holding; the Thirteenth Amendment is not mentioned.
Treatment Its premise of total forfeiture was abandoned in Coffin v. Reichard (1944), Cooper v. Pate (1964), and Wolff v. McDonnell (1974).
CaseVirginiaHistorical casesCustody
83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873)
The Court's first construction of the Reconstruction Amendments. It read the Thirteenth as abolishing slavery in every form while confining the Fourteenth's privileges-or-immunities clause narrowly. Miller, J.; four dissents.
Treatment Current on its Thirteenth Amendment reading; its Fourteenth Amendment reading is heavily criticized but not overruled.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesThe clause
109 U.S. 3 (1883)
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 struck. Congress may legislate against "all badges and incidents of slavery" under the Thirteenth Amendment, but refusal of public accommodation was held not to be one. Bradley, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting.
Treatment The badges-and-incidents power was reaffirmed and widened in Jones v. Mayer (1968). The accommodation holding is superseded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesBadges and incidents
Frederick Douglass, 1888.
Twenty-three years after the Amendment. The first reading of the exception by the man who saw it coming.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
Ida B. Wells, 1893, in The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World's Columbian Exposition.
The primary account of the lease, written while it ran.
ArticleUnited StatesReports and research
163 U.S. 537 (1896)
Racial segregation on railroads upheld; the Thirteenth Amendment argument rejected as reaching only slavery and its incidents. Brown, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting alone.
Treatment Overruled as to segregation by Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
CaseUnited StatesHistorical cases
165 U.S. 275 (1897)
Deserting seamen compelled to return to their ship: held not involuntary servitude, the Court reading the Amendment against historical exceptions. Brown, J.; Harlan, J., dissenting.
Treatment Still cited for the proposition that the Amendment carries unstated exceptions; much criticized.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude
182 U.S. 244 (1901)
The first of the Insular Cases: Puerto Rico held to belong to, but not be part of, the United States, so that the Constitution does not apply there of its own force in full. No majority opinion; Brown, J., announcing the judgment.
Treatment Still the governing frame for the territories; heavily criticized.
CasePuerto RicoTerritoriesHistorical cases
197 U.S. 207 (1905)
The federal peonage statute upheld as an exercise of Thirteenth Amendment power against private persons; the conviction reversed for want of proof that the men had been returned to a condition of peonage. Brewer, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage
219 U.S. 219 (1911)
An Alabama statute making failure to perform a labor contract presumptive evidence of fraud struck as peonage: compulsory labor enforced by criminal law is involuntary servitude. Hughes, J.; Holmes, J., dissenting.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage
235 U.S. 133 (1914)
Alabama's criminal-surety system, under which a convicted person worked off a fine for a private surety under threat of re-prosecution, struck as peonage. Day, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage
240 U.S. 328 (1916)
Compulsory work on public roads upheld as a civic duty of long standing, not involuntary servitude. McReynolds, J.
Treatment Still cited for the civic-duty exception.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesInvoluntary servitude
258 U.S. 298 (1922)
The right to jury trial held not to extend to Puerto Rico even after the Jones Act of 1917 conferred citizenship. Taft, C.J.
Treatment Current.
CasePuerto RicoTerritoriesHistorical cases
League of Nations, Geneva, September 25, 1926. United States adherence deposited March 21, 1929.
The definition: "the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." The first cite, always.
Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition
International Labour Organization, 1930. Not ratified by the United States.
The forced-labour definition carries its own exception for work exacted after a conviction. Why "forced labor" is the weaker frame: the international definition of forced labour excludes prison work; the definition of slavery does not.
Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition
315 U.S. 25 (1942)
A Georgia labor-contract statute struck under Bailey; a State may not use criminal law to compel labor in payment of a debt. Byrnes, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage
322 U.S. 4 (1944)
A Florida labor-contract statute struck; the opinion states the Amendment's purpose as making labor free by barring the compulsion of service under threat of criminal punishment. Jackson, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesPeonage
United Nations General Assembly, December 10, 1948.
Article 4: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." Article 15: everyone has the right to a nationality, and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of it. The declaration the treaties carry into law.
Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition
Act of Congress, 1950.
The full formula, in a federal statute only Congress can amend.
ConstitutionGuamThe clause
Act of Congress, 1954.
"Slavery shall not exist in the Virgin Islands. Involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted by a court of law, shall not exist in the Virgin Islands."
ConstitutionU.S. Virgin IslandsThe clause
Geneva, September 7, 1956. United States accession deposited December 6, 1967. Article 9: no reservations permitted.
Reaffirms the 1926 definition by direct reference. The second cite.
Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition
378 U.S. 546 (1964)
A state prisoner may sue under the Civil Rights Act for religious discrimination in prison. Per curiam. The decision that opened the federal courts to prisoners' claims.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesCustody
1967.
The full formula, in a constitution that operates under federal oversight.
ConstitutionAmerican SamoaThe clause
392 U.S. 409 (1968)
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 bars private racial discrimination in the sale of property, and Congress may determine what the badges and incidents of slavery are and legislate against them. Stewart, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesBadges and incidents
418 U.S. 539 (1974)
Due process applies to prison disciplinary proceedings that take good time; "there is no iron curtain drawn between the Constitution and the prisons of this country." White, J.
Treatment Current.
CaseUnited StatesHistorical casesCustody
487 U.S. 931 (1988).
"Involuntary servitude" limited to compulsion by physical or legal coercion. Economic and psychological pressure do not count. The wall every undefined "involuntary servitude" clause is read through.
CaseUnited StatesThe rulings
859 F.2d 929 (D.C. Cir. 1988).
When the political branches violate a peremptory norm, "the domestic legal consequences are unclear." And: the prohibitions of murder and slavery "may well restrain our government in the same way that the Constitution restrains it." The State's best answer to the jus cogens argument, and the argument's own hedge, in one opinion.
CaseUnited StatesInternational law and the vote
974 F.2d 806 (7th Cir. 1992).
A prisoner doing required work "is actually engaged in involuntary servitude, not employment," and the State's control comes "from incarceration itself." The court says it in the State's favor and proves the point: the custody is the source of the power.
CaseUnited StatesThe rulings
305 N.J. Super. 117 (App. Div. 1997).
The published state rule: no liberty interest in a job, wages, or credits. The opinion never mentions the Thirteenth Amendment. That silence is the record.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
184 F.3d 236 (3d Cir. 1999). The circuit that governs New Jersey.
Compelled cafeteria work "did not violate the Thirteenth Amendment" while the plaintiff was duly convicted. The day his conviction was vacated he became a detainee the State could compel at most to housekeeping. Conviction is the switch.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
167 N.J. 69 (2001).
The State is not an "employer" of its own corrections officers under the wage law, and consent to suit needs "clear and unambiguous legislative expression." Why the waiver goes in the constitution.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
IT-96-23 and IT-96-23/1-A (ICTY App. Ch., June 12, 2002)
Enslavement as a crime against humanity: the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership, with the indicia that show it. Trial Chamber judgement of February 22, 2001 affirmed.
Treatment Current. The court-validated indicia the audits measure.
CaseInternationalThe definitionCustody
390 F.3d 145 (1st Cir. 2004).
Labor obtained by prohibited means "is forced, even if he is paid or compensated for the work." Pay is not a defense.
CaseUnited StatesThe rulings
Jean Allain. Brill, Leiden, 2008.
The drafting record of the definition the network works from: every draft, debate, and vote behind Article 1(1) of 1926 and the 1953 Protocol and 1956 Convention that carried it forward. Where the treaty is the authority, this is the record of how its words were chosen.
Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition
552 U.S. 491 (2008).
A treaty that is not self-executing is not domestic law until Congress implements it. The 1926 definition carries definitional and interpretive weight in a United States court. It is not a cause of action. The amendment supplies the cause of action.
CaseUnited StatesInternational law and the vote
Research Network on the Legal Parameters of Slavery.
Interpretive gloss on the 1926 definition: possession as the foundation, then the further powers, substance over form, security of holding. Never cited alone.
Treaty or instrumentUnited StatesThe definition
No. 3:13-cv-04968 (D.N.J. May 19, 2014). Unpublished.
"There is no federally protected right of a state prisoner not to work while imprisoned after conviction." Dismissed with prejudice.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
No. 3:13-cv-04464 (D.N.J. Jan. 21, 2015). Unpublished.
"A sentenced inmate may reasonably expect to be required to work without compensation as a result of his conviction." Wage and forced-labor claims dismissed with prejudice.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
No. 2:14-cv-05723 (D.N.J. Dec. 28, 2015). Unpublished.
Two men served thirty-year mandatory minimums, earned about 15,505 work and commutation credits they could never use, and asked to be paid for them on release. The court read the statute as "permissive rather than mandatory" and held the State owed them nothing. Dismissed with prejudice.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
442 N.J. Super. 406 (App. Div. 2015).
The State cannot be sued for damages under its own Civil Rights Act. The remedy has to be constitutional.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
No. 3:15-cv-05769 (D.N.J. Aug. 30, 2016).
Same facts, same result. Carries the Department's own letter: it "elects to award both credit and money" though it "has the option of awarding just one as described in statute."
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
Worth Rises.
The companies, the contracts, and the money.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
International Law Commission, Draft Conclusions on Peremptory Norms of General International Law (jus cogens), 2022, Annex.
The prohibition of slavery is on the Commission's list of norms from which no derogation is permitted. No government and no electorate can vote slavery lawful.
Treaty or instrumentInternationalThe definition
Denver District Court, Case No. 2022CV30421, February 13, 2026 (Wallace, J.). 61 pages.
Colorado Department of Corrections' coercive labor practices held unconstitutional under the Colorado Constitution, Article II, Section 26, as amended by the voters in 2018. The first ruling to give a removal operational force. Decided as involuntary servitude; the court was never asked to say what slavery means.
CaseColoradoThe rulings
American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, 2022. 149 pages.
The national survey of prison labor: who works, at what pay, under what compulsion, and for whose benefit. The most cited factual record in the field.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
60 F.4th 25 (3d Cir. 2023).
Civil contemnors made to work at a recycling center for five dollars a day. The court, quoting Vanskike on the Amendment's "specific exclusion of prisoner labor," wrote of the unconvicted plaintiffs: "no one can say that not convicted plaintiffs' work belongs to the County." The convicted person's labor does. That is the ownership power, named by the circuit.
CaseNew JerseyNew Jersey
Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, CL-2024-0710, December 19, 2025.
Alabama removed its exception in 2022. The State pleaded sovereign immunity against its own amendment, and the appeal lost because the penalties alleged were held not to be involuntary servitude. Why the remedy and the immunity waiver go in the text.
CaseAlabamaThe rulings
15 Cal. 5th 968 (2024).
People never convicted worked unpaid for a private contractor in a county jail, sued for minimum wage, and lost unanimously because a statute still stood. What keeps wage law out of jails is statutes, not the exception. A statute is not an amendment.
CaseCaliforniaThe rulings
Adam Davidson, 124 Columbia Law Review 633 (2024).
The regime in one phrase. A century of federal courts holding that a conviction alone triggers the exception, plus fifty-one legislatures handing the decision to prison administrators: no notice that the punishment will be imposed, no reason given, no judge or jury deciding. The article surveys every state's implementation of the exception.
ArticleUnited StatesReports and research
2024.
What removal costs and what it returns, in the states' own figures.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
New Jersey Legislature, 2026 session.
The legislative companions to the plea disclosure petition filed April 17, 2026.
Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey
New Jersey Statutes, Title 30.
The Commissioner sets prison pay. Compensation "may be in the form of cash or remission of time from sentence or both." One day off a sentence for every five days worked. When freedom is the wage, refusing is not free.
Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey
New Jersey Administrative Code, Department of Corrections.
Prohibited act .254, refusing to work, and its sanctions: up to 120 days in restrictive housing and 180 days of lost commutation time. The rule that punishes refusal.
Statute or regulationNew JerseyNew Jersey
Corporate Accountability Lab.
The private beneficiaries of the exception, named.
ConstitutionUnited StatesReports and research
The Sentencing Project.
State by state incarceration rates by race and ethnicity. The State's own counts, which the audits enter as the State's admission against itself.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
Database.
Every case in which an American court cited a slave case as precedent, and the courts still doing it.
Report or databaseUnited StatesReports and research
Andrew Ross, Tommaso Bardelli, and Aiyuba Thomas. OR Books.
The book on the movement, from inside it.
BookUnited StatesReports and research
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