Thirteenth Amendment Research Articles

The Forgotten Emancipator: James Mitchell Ashley and the Ideological Origins of Reconstruction by Rebecca E. Zietlow

Reviewed by: The Forgotten Emancipator: James Mitchell Ashley and the Ideological Origins of Reconstruction by Rebecca E. Zietlow Graham A. Peck (bio) The Forgotten Emancipator: James Mitchell Ashley and the Ideological Origins of Reconstruction. By Rebecca E. Zietlow. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. 202. Cloth, $49.99.) Rebecca Zietlow, a law professor at the University of Toledo, has written the first full-scale biography of James Mitchell Ashley, an influential Republican Party politician who advocated for the freedom of slaves and the rights of laborers. His most significant contributions came during Reconstruction, when he shepherded the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress and supported bills establishing what Zietlow calls "a positive right to free labor" (131). His advocacy of free labor is as important to Zietlow as his antislavery radicalism. She argues that Ashley's free labor values precipitated his antislavery activism and persisted after slavery's destruction because he believed that capital should not exploit labor. Hence, for Ashley, "abolishing slavery was a necessary and groundbreaking accomplishment, but it was not the end of the struggle" (177). Zietlow shares Ashley's perspective on this issue. She bookends her study not with legal, historical, or historiographical analysis, but with a call to action in support of "racial and economic justice" (7). From this perspective, "James Ashley's story is one of leadership and activism" (2), and his "example of political engagement and struggle to achieve justice and equality may be his most important legacy" (187). She makes the case for his legacy by situating his career in the ideological currents of nineteenth-century antislavery and labor reform, contending that there was a substantial "convergence" between the two (12). Driven by those currents, Ashley helped to produce a critical reforging of "national identity" that included slavery's destruction, citizenship's expansion, and free labor's emergence (12). Ashley is certainly an interesting and sympathetic figure. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1824, and developed a deep aversion [End Page 166] to slavery when young. His hostility primarily reflected his direct experience with slavery, a consequence of growing up "near the Ohio River," but his mother's opposition to slavery probably also shaped his outlook (20). His antislavery sentiments intensified at the age of fourteen, when he decamped from his family to live with Quaker abolitionists and began developing oratorical skills by "reciting" the speeches of Kentucky's famous abolitionist Cassius Clay (21). He became an activist by the age of eighteen, by which time he had become a student of southern politics. At the age of twenty-seven, when he began his political career by running for mayor of Portsmouth, Ohio, he had already joined the Underground Railroad and helped slaves escape to freedom. His activism undermined his mayoral bid, but it positioned him perfectly to join the rising antislavery movement, and in the early 1850s he "became a protégé of Salmon Chase," Ohio's foremost antislavery politician (22). Angered by the Democratic Party's pro-slavery policies, Ashley helped Chase establish Ohio's Republican Party in 1854 and won election to Congress as a Republican in 1858. His radicalism ran deep, extending to women's rights and racial equality, but, as he recalled, he "thoroughly educate[d] the people on the slavery question," and he won 55 percent of the vote in the 1858 general election (86). He was eager to use national power to abolish slavery, and he would do so with great success. An "egalitarian free labor vision" underlay Ashley's politics (68). His vision partly reflected his Democratic Party roots. Notwithstanding the pronounced role of slaveholders in the party, Ashley believed that the "true Democratic position" was antislavery because the party represented the common man (69). Unlike most Democrats, however, Ashley married his populism to the belief that the American Constitution was fundamentally antislavery. Ashley owed this conviction to abolitionist legal theory. He contended that the Constitution promised "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity," not "to enslave any man" (74). Hence, writes Zietlow, he endorsed the northern system of free labor, "in which workers were entitled to certain rights, including citizenship, equality, the protection of the government, and the...

A Badge of Slavery: How Private Prisons are Unconstitutional Under the Thirteenth Amendment

This paper argues that prisoners held in private penal institutions may successfully challenge the constitutionality of private prisons under the Thirteenth Amendment. To prove a Thirteenth Amendment claim against private prisons, a plaintiff must first demonstrate that: 1) private prisons are not included in the crime exception and 2) that private prisons are equivalent to slavery, involuntary servitude or a “badge of slavery.” Furthermore, this paper promotes a two-part test, which seeks to aid potential plaintiffs and courts in articulating what constitutes a “badge of slavery.” The “Badge of Slavery” test analyzes whether: 1) The controlling party had extensive control over the subjected party; and 2) whether the subjected party profits from that control. Lastly, this paper puts forth a hypothetical to further demonstrate how the badge of slavery test can be used to illustrate the unconstitutionality of private prisons.

Racial Justice Demands Truth & Reconciliation

Ever since Europeans first settled the continent over four hundred years ago, racial injustice has existed in North America. The attempted destruction of Indigenous Nations and families in the pursuit of land and resources, along with the formal legal recognition of human bondage in the United States for nearly a century following the nation's birth in 1776, created fundamental cracks that have never been addressed. While the Thirteenth Amendment officially abolished slavery in 1865 and the Fourteenth Amendment mandated equal protection in 1868, nearly another century passed before “separate but equal” was repudiated and some progress was made. Today we still see persistent racial inequities throughout American society. The criminal justice/prison complex disproportionately targets, captures and incarcerates persons of color; and police shootings of unarmed black victims – such as of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 – are grimly commonplace. It is difficult to deny, in light of this history, that America has a major problem of race. What can be done? Truth and Reconciliation is a process that has been used effectively in other nations and cultures (e.g., South Africa; Rwanda; Germany; Indigenous Nations) following times of deep racial discord/violence. The idea is that true healing can begin only when past atrocities and injustices are first acknowledged and addressed. It is time for Americans to engage, finally, in processes of Truth and Reconciliation; first to acknowledge the atrocities of slavery and the sobering realities of its aftermath, then to attempt, through conscious acts of reconciliation and healing, to account for the massive harms done.

'Liquidated Damages' in Guest Worker Contracts: Involuntary Servitude, Debt Peonage or Valid Contract Clause?

Non-citizen migrant workers who come to the United States on short term work visas, especially H-1B visas, often sign contracts that include a promise to work for the employer for a set period of time. These contracts may include a damages clause that requires the worker to pay the employer a large sum of money if they stop working for the employer, either to switch employers or to return home. Because these sums of money are so large relative to the worker's ability to pay, they prevent workers from leaving employment. This paper examines whether those liquidated damages clauses are enforceable. It suggests that there are two different ways to analyze these clauses: a contract law approach and a free labor approach. The contract law approach, found in state contract law and the statute that regulates H-1B visas, serves the dual purposes of efficiency and compensation. The free labor approach, found in a variety of statutes passed pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, on the other hand serves the purposes of protecting individuals and society from the ills associated with modern day slavery. This article examines two different prohibitions contained in the free labor approach - prohibitions against involuntary servitude and debt peonage. It explores and explains the differences between these variations on unfree labor, with a focus on the purpose of prohibiting each arrangement. The article then returns to the problem of liquidated damages clauses in guest worker contracts to examine the implications of these competing approaches (contract law vs. free labor) for advocates, courts and Congress.

Who Freed the Slaves? The Fight Over the Thirteenth Amendment, by Leonard L. Richards

Who Freed the Slaves? The Fight Over the Thirteenth Amendment, by Leonard L. Richards

Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union by Daniel W. Crofts

Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union by Daniel W. Crofts

City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 by Kelly Lytle Hernandez

Reviewed by: City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 by Kelly Lytle Hernandez Natalia Molina CITY OF INMATES: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965. By Kelly Lytle Hernandez. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 2017. Lytle Hernandez's Cities of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles is a study of the rise of imprisonment, broadly speaking, and the [End Page 124] buildup of Los Angeles's prison system, which by 1950 was the largest of any US city. The book makes significant contributions to US history, urban history, the study of race and ethnicity, and carceral history. Incarceration is foundational to Los Angeles; the city was literally built by convict labor, which was perfectly legal under the Thirteenth Amendment's dual provisions of ending black slavery while allowing the use of unfree labor as criminal punishment. As a scholar exploring race as a relational concept, I am fascinated by Lytle Hernandez's account of how the history of incarceration affected racialized groups differently over time—and how the development of Los Angeles remains, in the aggregate, a story about power, domination, and race. Each chapter unfolds a story that explains how the carceral complex in Los Angeles expanded and shape-shifted in order to control whichever population had resources of labor or land that were needed at the time. The book spans three centuries, examining the workings of imprisonment at different historical moments, including Native American imprisonment beginning in the 1700s, immigrant detention of Chinese and moral panics over homeless white men in the late 1800s, the first cases of Mexican imprisonment and their connection to the Mexican Revolution, the growth and entrenchment of Mexican incarceration in the 1920s and 30s, and its overlap with the origins of black incarceration in the city. Starting with the first prison established during the founding of Los Angeles, and connecting the histories and experiences of racialized groups not traditionally examined together (including Native Americans, Chinese, Mexicans, blacks, and poor whites), Lytle Hernandez deftly demonstrates that imprisonment is much more than punishment—it is also a way of subjugating, plundering, and even disappearing groups not part of the settler colonial ruling class. Scholars have traditionally studied these histories separately, grouping them by time period, by distinct racial and ethnic groups, or by forms of imprisonment (convict leasing, immigrant detention). Lytle Hernandez's interdisciplinary approach, however, makes a compelling argument that they should be examined together, as all fall within the rubric she terms "caging" and the long history of white settler colonialism. Reading this book at times felt like stepping through the looking glass. Through her painstaking research and capacious theoretical framework, Lytle Hernandez has an uncanny ability to take what we think we know and turn it on its head. The story of Los Angeles, for instance, is commonly told as one of four distinct time periods with little connection made between them: indigenous society, Spanish conquest, the Mexican period, and the US conquest in 1848. Using her carceral lens, Lytle Hernandez fills in those gaps, demonstrating how legal systems in one period were transferred to the next in ways that kept the racial hierarchy of the region intact. For example, the use of public order charges (e.g. vagrancy laws) during the Mexican period (1810–21) solidified the control and racialization of the indigenous population that begun decades earlier, while expanding that control to include Africans, mulattos, and mesitzos. As these populations were racialized and marked as unworthy of citizenship, the category of "criminal" was neatly mapped onto the racial categories of the time. Under American rule, these same vagrancy laws increasingly justified a captive native population who could be auctioned to the highest bidder or used for work on a chain gang. That this all occurred in California, a supposedly free state, is staggering. By connecting the time periods, a unique move, Lytle Hernandez uses a wide lens to demonstrate how the creation and enforcement of laws through policing and imprisonment was central not just for the policing of racialized and landless groups, but also for the...

Physician Personal Services Contract Enforceability: The Influence of the Thirteenth Amendment.

We explore the influence of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution on the enforceability of personal services contracts for physicians. This influence extends from the ambiguous definition to the legal interpretation of personal services contracts. The courts have struggled with determining contracts to be a personal service and whether to grant injunctions for continued performance. The award or denial of damages due to a breach of contract is vested in these enforceability complications. Because of the Thirteenth Amendment's influence, courts and contracting parties will continue to struggle with physician personal services contract enforceability; although other points of view may exist. Possible solutions are offered for health care contract managers dealing with challenges attributable to physician personal services contracts.

The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border by Christopher Phillips

Reviewed by: The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border by Christopher Phillips Michael S. Green The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War and the Remaking of the American Middle Border. Christopher Phillips. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-0-1951-8723-6. 528 pp., cloth, $34.95. Mention border areas in nineteenth-century America, and western scholars might cite the borderlands field that focuses mainly on old Spanish colonies that now comprise much of the Sun Belt. Others will point to the border states in the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's statement on emancipation that he wanted God on his side but needed Kentucky. Identifying western border states seemed easy: Kentucky and Missouri, slave states that remained in the Union. But Christopher Phillips's remarkable new book should make all who study the nineteenth century think differently and deeply about the Civil War's border regions and perhaps borderlands history. The Rivers Ran Backward focuses on those traditional border states, and the lower northern border—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas—then considers the west. According to longstanding arguments, "Once settled, the new states west of the Appalachians formed a fixed boundary between freedom and slavery, extending the border that inevitably produced the war. None of these beliefs is, or was, accurate" (5). Phillips explains, "This book is about how a traditional western political culture that traditionally accommodated slavery was transformed by the era of the Civil War—its coming, its lived experience, and its memory—into the cultural politics of region. It explains how slavery could organize the life of an entire region even as it became the foundation of the conflict while being at once its least attributed and most unreconciled cause among those white residents who endured it" (9). To explain how the Civil War did and did not shape the region, Phillips travels a necessarily long and winding road from the early nineteenth century into the early twentieth. He examines how upper southern border states never relied so heavily on slavery as deeper and coastal southern states did, how slavery affected [End Page 92] the culture of the North's lower western border, how regionalism developed and its effects, and how historical memory shaped the Civil War's outcomes on the western border. A rich series of character portraits, statistics, descriptions, and analysis shows how slavery existed north of what traditionally has been considered the institution's northernmost boundary and how it and responses to it shaped race relations and politics. It seems as though every page has facts or analysis that historians of the era and its numerous subfields, as well as scholars of place and the places Phillips discusses, will find useful and thought-provoking. Even a book this brilliantly researched and ambitious cannot do it all. Phillips states—maybe warns—that it "is largely organized chronologically and topically, moving back and forth as events occurred across the interior rivers, central to the region's history, between the middle border's slave and free states," which makes it difficult at times to follow a complicated story (10). For example, James Rollins appears as a proslavery Whig urging his West Point–cadet son to say "that you belong to neither section—that you are a true son of the great West" but never reappears as a border state unionist who votes and speaks for the Thirteenth Amendment—a niggling point, but the kind of information that might have done more to unify the story (94). The anecdote brings up Lincoln's role: Phillips calls him the "central figure" in the traditional narrative and "a lifelong resident of the border states of this region"; increasing his presence might have better underscored the evolution of the people, issues, and place (5). One way he puts Lincoln at the center is in the 1858 Senate debates: he sees the debates in the context of Illinois as part of the western border region is welcome, but calling Lincoln "still a Whig in a Democratic world" that year misstates his political evolution, the region's, and the result (Lincoln won more votes and legislators than Stephen Douglas) (102). More substantively...

Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition by William C. Harris

Reviewed by: Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition by William C. Harris Timothy J. Orr Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition. By William C. Harris. ( Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. Pp. x, 254. $34.95, ISBN 978-0-7006-2412-6.) In Two Against Lincoln: Reverdy Johnson and Horatio Seymour, Champions of the Loyal Opposition, William C. Harris recounts the political careers of Maryland senator Reverdy Johnson and New York governor Horatio Seymour, two of Abraham Lincoln's most outspoken critics. Although these Democratic icons never met or corresponded, they formed the bulwark of the North's "loyal opposition" (p. 2). The words loyal and opposition are key. Johnson and Seymour were neither antiwar Copperheads nor antiparty Unionists. Instead, they represented a faction of Democrats "who remained faithful to the old party of Andrew Jackson, to its constitutional tenets, and also to the original Union purpose in the war" (p. 2). Bitterly opposed to the Republican Party but unwilling to go as far as their Copperhead colleagues, Johnson and Seymour charted a middle path, shunning Copperhead appeals for armistice and avoiding collaboration with Republicans' seemingly radical agenda. In essence, Two Against Lincoln is two conjoined books. Part 1 (chapters 1–4) chronicles Johnson's career, and Part 2 (chapters 5–8) chronicles Seymour's career. Harris engages each politician separately but offers an introduction and conclusion with comparisons and generalizations. The two political biographies are well researched and soundly written, giving a full description of Johnson and Seymour and their evolving opinions about slavery, secession, and the war. The story of Reverdy Johnson is perhaps the more interesting of the two, as it charts the aging constitutional lawyer's meandering career from conservative, old-line Whig to Douglas Democrat. Initially, Johnson supported Lincoln's wartime policies, even endorsing Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in Johnson's home state of Maryland. However, several important events caused Johnson to break with the president, including the controversial court-martial of Major General Fitz John Porter and the Emancipation Proclamation. After a fourteen-year absence from the Senate, Johnson regained his seat in 1863 and emerged as one of Lincoln's biggest critics, going so far as to say that Lincoln demonstrated "'utter unfitness for the presidency'" (p. 80). The key to understanding Johnson, Harris claims, involves recognizing his regret for bipartisan collaboration. For instance, in 1864 Johnson initially supported the Thirteenth Amendment but then regretted endorsing it. In 1867 he endorsed the Fourteenth Amendment but later worried that he had helped create a "Republican despotism" (p. 97). Increasingly paranoid that radicalism was on the march and leaving the Constitution trampled in its wake, Johnson repeatedly claimed that conservatism—adhering to a policy of limited political change—would save the republic. According to Harris, Johnson believed the founding generation had "established a near perfect instrument of government that restrained central authority, emphasized state and individual rights, and balanced executive and legislative authority" (p. 112). Anything that disrupted this balance, in Johnson's mind, amounted to heresy. [End Page 462] The second half of Two Against Lincoln analyzes Seymour's career, and naturally it emphasizes his governorship and 1868 presidential bid. Harris characterizes Seymour as an inveterate conservative, deeply suspicious of radical government. In October 1861 Seymour called for Democrats to unite and quell the ambitions of "'violent and revolutionary'" elements in the North (p. 122). "'In this dark hour,'" he encouraged them to "'keep on with [the] battle against disloyalty in the North and the South alike'" (p. 122). Harris's depiction of Seymour as a single-minded conservative is convincing, but it has its limitations. For instance, when Seymour spoke about race, his policies rarely reflected political principle. At the 1868 New York Democratic State Convention, Seymour derided his opponents by calling their emphasis on black equality an idealistic myth, while characterizing African Americans as "'an ignorant and degraded race'" (p. 195). Like other members of the loyal opposition, Seymour never stood on the side of political equality, and this issue goes unaddressed in Harris's disappointing conclusion. Harris praises "the two conservative champions of the loyal...

Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism eds. by Heath W. Carter and Laura Rominger Porter

Reviewed by: Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism eds. by Heath W. Carter and Laura Rominger Porter Mark J. Dixon Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism. Edited by Heath W. Carter and Laura Rominger Porter. Grand Rapids: Eerd-mans, 2017. 297 pp. "Some Lutherans in America don't like the word 'evangelical' because it has been monopolized by biblical fundamentalists." [The New Church Debate: Issues Facing American Lutheranism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, 2] Carl Braaten's imprecise use of terms did not invalidate his assessment of Lutheran attitudes, which still rings true today. In fact, Lutherans in America have been skeptical of evangelicalism (and closely related movements) long before it came to be associated almost exclusively with the modern Religious Right. This skepticism implies that evangelicalism is easily defined, and unworthy of serious or respectful engagement. This collection puts these assumptions to the lie. Here readers encounter evangelicalism as "the single most powerful explanatory device adopted by academic historians to account for the distinctive features of American society, culture, and identity," and see the folly in pigeonholing a tradition without a universally accepted "consistent historical referent" (xvi). Carter and Porter open their introduction by summarizing the evangelical influence on modern American life—from the Bakkers to the Osteens, The Total Woman to The Purpose Driven Life, Nixon to [End Page 118] Trump. Despite evangelicalism's obvious contemporary significance, its history was neglected until the "historiographical revolution" of the 1980s, which emanated largely from Wheaton College's Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals (founded 1982). This surge in scholarship located the modern faith associated with Billy Graham within a tradition "extend[ing] all the way back to colonial revivals led by the likes of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and Sarah Osborn." It also led to a growing recognition that "no other faith had so powerfully shaped the nation's course" (xv). Despite (or because of) this increased critical attention, a satisfactory historical definition for evangelicalism has proved elusive. Carter and Porter intentionally refrain from offering a comprehensive definition, and instead frame this collection of essays as "a variety of historical approaches to a term that … points to a set of family resemblances that spring from a shared genealogy" (xvi). Decisive moments in the history of several branches of this family tree are laid out in twelve essays spanning from the Great Awakening to the 1974 Lausanne Congress. Every essay is worth your time. I regret that I can only mention a few. Some, like Harry Stout's on the Great Awakening or George Marsden's on fundamentalism, conveniently repackage field-shaping theses from these authors' own monographs to fit the "turning points" device. Catherine Brekus' essay is notable for treating a classic theme (the relationship between evangelicalism and the Enlightenment) in a new way, in this case by approaching the issue through figures like Sarah Osborn and Newport Gardner instead of, for example, Jonathan Edwards. Edith Blumhofer's essay on the origins of Pentecostalism in Chicago is so highly detailed that it almost functions as a very brief introduction to the subject. This reader particularly appreciated Luke Harlow's chapter, "The Civil War and the Making of Conservative American Evangelicalism," and its convincing argument that the slavery debate and its effective resolution in the Thirteenth Amendment created the narrower, more conservative evangelicalism that would go into the twentieth century prepared to devote tremendous energy to a range of issues that would come to define fundamentalism. [End Page 119] I craved at least one more chapter after Daren Dochuk's on Lausanne, or at least an explanation for the absence of an essay dedicated to the modern evangelical culture with which Carter and Porter chose to open their introduction. Of course a scholarly critique of evangelical Christianity in the context of the 2016 presidential election is most to be desired, but that history almost certainly unfolded too close to publication. In any event it is difficult to know what this turning point means yet. Where will evangelicalism go from here? I also would have liked more from Carter and Porter on their intriguing "genealogical" definition of evangelicalism. What are the family resemblances between figures like George Whitefield...

Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education by Christi M. Smith

Reviewed by: Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education by Christi M. Smith Mary Ellen Pethel Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education. By Christi M. Smith. ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. xviii, 316. Paper, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-3069; cloth, $85.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-3068-7.) In 1878 John G. Fee stated, "'Those who pray together and study together will not fight'" (p. 5). Nearly 140 years later, readers of Reparation and Reconciliation: The Rise and Fall of Integrated Higher Education will surely wonder what could have been if Fee's vision of educational integration had succeeded. Christi M. Smith examines the narrow window of time between the end of the Civil War and the normalization of codified segregation as various individuals and groups worked passionately to diversify higher education. Ultimately Smith argues that while racial coeducation was achieved in certain institutions, the increasingly competitive collegiate world, coupled with lack of federal support and enforcement as well as subsequent reliance on private organizations, led to the demise of racial coeducation. The interplay of these actors and forces against the backdrop of deep-seated racism, classism, and patriarchy led to coexistent but separate systems of higher education for African Americans, working-class white men, and women. As Smith notes, "more doors were opened, but they did not lead to equal opportunities" (p. 17). Chapters 1 and 2 provide context for U.S. policy after the Civil War. Higher education emerged as the most culturally acceptable form of rehabilitation and reform compared with other options such as military occupation, political rights, and land redistribution. Here Smith focuses on the "anti-caste" movement, which viewed race as but one category in a larger social order based on rigid stigmas determined by inherited traits rather than the merits of one's work or potential (p. 2). Even so, the expansion of land-grant colleges and public-private partnerships with organizations such as [End Page 459] the American Missionary Association (AMA), the General Education Board (GEB), and the Freedmen's Bureau did democratize higher education to an extent. College enrollment increased 278 percent between the end of the Civil War and the start of the twentieth century, but this growth did not lead to a single model. Chapter 4 delves deeper into the coordinated but at times disorganized efforts of the AMA, the GEB, and the Freedmen's Bureau. Chapter 3 documents three institutions far ahead of their time and some of the most successful experiments in racial coeducation: Berea College, Howard University, and Oberlin College. It is arguably the strongest chapter in the book. Backed by rich primary sources and data, it carefully navigates the evolution and development of each school. Smith rightly points out that there was no predetermined protocol for integrating these schools. In 1908, 5–10 percent of Oberlin's enrollment consisted of African Americans, Berea's student population was approximately 50 percent white and 50 percent black, and Howard was predominantly African American but maintained some white students. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with issues relating to white and black women and the cultivation of a male black elite, at the time often referred to as the Talented Tenth. These chapters yield great insight into the competing forces that controlled the intellectual experiences of Berea, Howard, and Oberlin students as well as those of wealthy white men who attended traditional universities. Readers will also see the formation of parallel systems of higher education in the late 1800s that remained in place until after World War II. From its first words to its final sentence, Smith's book speaks to the trials and tribulations, the victories and setbacks, and the immediate and long-term strategies of schools committed to creating an inclusive learning environment between Reconstruction and the early Progressive era. Reparation and Reconciliation uncovers a lost chapter in history that demands our attention if we are to use the past as a guide for current social and cultural divides. Most textbooks refer to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in one paragraph and the introduction of Jim Crow in the next. Smith's...

Child Labor as Involuntary Servitude: The Failure of Congress To Legislate Against Child Labor Pursuant to the Thirteenth Amendment in the Early Twentieth Century

Numerous times in the early twentieth century, Congress considered the problem of child labor. Child labor’s opponents bemoaned the harsh conditions under which children toiled, and frequently referred to the practice as “child slavery.” Yet although Congress twice succeeded in legislating on the topic, both times it found itself stymied by the Supreme Court, which struck down the statutes as exceeding congressional authority. In response, Congress passed the Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution, but it failed to be ratified. It was only after the 1937 reversal in Supreme Court Commerce Clause jurisprudence that the Court sustained a federal child labor law. Curiously, Congress never attempted to legislate against child labor by characterizing the practice as a form of involuntary servitude prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment. Why didn't Congress seize upon this potential basis? This Article addresses that question. First, it discusses the constitutional viability of the Thirteenth Amendment approach in the early twentieth century. Then, examining the history of the movement against child labor, the Article reveals that Congress simply overlooked the approach in the movement’s early stages in light of more salient precedent involving the Commerce and Taxing Clauses. By the time the approach was proposed in the House Judiciary Committee in 1922, Congress had already shifted attention to passing the Child Labor Amendment. Twice chagrined by the Supreme Court, members of Congress believed the Court would reject any attempt to limit child labor under existing constitutional powers. Consequently, the Thirteenth Amendment argument never advanced to the full body of either the House or the Senate. Finally, the Article explains that the approach might have been politically viable if considered earlier, before the Court struck down the first federal child labor statute. The Article concludes by assessing implications that a Thirteenth Amendment basis for federal child labor legislation might have had for the development of Progressive-era labor legislation.

Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Consummation to Abolition and Key to the Fourteenth Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Consummation to Abolition and Key to the Fourteenth Amendment

Thirteenth Amendment Optimism

Thirteenth Amendment optimism is the view that the Thirteenth Amendment may be used to reach doctrinal outcomes neither specifically intended by the Amendment's drafters nor obvious to contemporary audiences. In prominent legal scholarship , Thirteenth Amendment optimism has supported constitutional rights to abortion and health care and constitutional powers to prohibit hate speech and domestic violence , among other things. This Essay examines the practical utility of Thirteenth Amendment optimism in the face of dim prospects for adoption by courts. The Essay argues that Thirteenth Amendment optimism is most valuable , both historically and today , as a means of motivating the political process to protect affirmative constitutional rights.

Running the Robed Gauntlet: Southern State Courts’ Interpretation of the Emancipation Proclamation

At the time of its issuance, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation received consistent objections to its legality. Nowhere did these objections concern Lincoln more than from the judicial branch, resulting in the Thirteenth Amendment’s passage. Though the Supreme Court never directly took up the proclamation, this paper examines one group that did: Southern Reconstruction-Era state courts. While much literature exists on the Emancipation Proclamation, little examines how the judiciary, much less these courts, interpreted the document. These cases arose regarding payments for slave contracts made after January 1st, 1863 and before the Thirteenth Amendment’s ratification in December 1865. I show how these judges generally agreed on slavery’s status in peacetime and in places the proclamation excluded. However, three distinct positions arose regarding the proclamation’s legality elsewhere, positions grounded in the judges’ understanding of secession and the war powers of the national government as well as the president. This paper examines and compares these three positions in detail, explaining how some declared the proclamation illegal, some considered it legal while changing its substance, and a final group upheld the document as written. This paper shows Lincoln’s concerns about the judiciary to be well founded while also speaking to contemporary debates over war powers.

Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union

Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union

역사적 맥락에서 보는 정치 스릴러 영화, Lincoln

The movie Lincoln (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg, can be categorized as a political thriller according to A.O. Scott in his New York Times article. A thriller dramatizes a conflict between a protagonist and a villain, enhancing tension and suspense while the protagonist overcomes the obstacle the villain presents. Following the pattern of a thriller, Lincoln dramatizes a conflict between the charismatic President and the inefficient and villainous House over the passage of the Thirteenth amendment ending slavery in January 1865. In order to heighten urgency and tension concerning the amendment and highlighting the heroic characteristics of President Lincoln, the movie transforms many aspects of the significant historical incidents and characters around the Civil War. Focusing on the charismatic leadership of Lincoln as a protagonist of the thriller, the movie fails to deal with the dynamic historical flow toward the amendment, the complex political contexts around the emancipation of slaves, and many heroes involved in the emancipation movement. Historically the emancipation and the amendment have been achieved by the collaboration of many activists including women and black people. And the House initiated to propose the amendment. But in the movie the House is portrayed as a hilarious and uncontrollable group which is unable to debate rationally regarding to the abolishment of slavery. While the passive black characters fail to establish the meaningful relationship with Lincoln, the white lobbyists are actively involved in the political games and set up personal relationships with the President. Lincoln conforms to the popular US cinema which has consistently placed value on whiteness as many critics observe. As a commercial movie, Lincoln aims to entertain rather than to illustrate ideological fairness or historical truth.

Devolution of Legislative Power to the Provincial Council of Sri Lanka

The objective of the study is to examine the states of legislative devolution in Sri Lanka under present constitution of 1978. The ‘Indo-Lanka Accord’ committed Sri Lanka to establish a system of devolution to Provincial Councils (PCs). Consequently with the aim of devolving power, the PCs were established in each of the nine Provinces of Sri Lanka under the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In a system where devolution of power exists, power is divided between the national and sub national level. In case of Sri Lanka such a division takes place between the central government which is the government at national level and the provincial council which is the government at sub national level. The legislation is the framework by which governments of whatever persuasion seek to achieve their purposes. Under a truly devolved system, the unit to which the power is devolved can exercise its autonomy in the implementation of the devolved functions. This autonomy should have been ensured, in the PC system as expected in the 1987 Indo-Lanka Agreement. It was found that the PCs are elected bodies which were given power to pass statutes applicable to their respective Provinces, with regards to certain specified matters. The legislative power of the PCs is not exclusive theirs. Issues related with legislative power also contributed to the weak capacity basis of the Provincial Council.

Daniel W. Crofts. Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union.

Daniel W. Crofts. Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union.