Essay On The 13th Amendment

Many citizens in the United States were led to believe that after the Civil War, the United States and its’ territories had indeed freed all slaves from their masters but, what many did not see coming was a loophole in the 13th Amendment that would leave a major footprint in U.S history. The thirteenth amendment states, “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". However, the key phrase in this amendment was “except as a punishment for crime”. Since slavery was illegal because of the 13th amendment, many individuals and large corporations found a new and legal method to continue

Milner. After a short period of time additional states such as Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, started to implement the system in like manner. These states realized the amount of income that the system would generate, henceforth it was a ‘no-brainer’ to implement the system within their states considering Alabama’s state revenues derived from convict was a substantial 73 percent in the year 1898. Many viewed the convict leasing system as a good idea because it would increase the states’ economic power which would allow for the reconstruction and further development of the state. However, the system was far from fair and even further from being ethical. The difference between convict labor and slavery were virtually nonexistent. During the periods of slavery, African-Americans were bought by masters to work on Farms, Factories, and many other industries without receiving any monetary compensations. Slave masters, whom where predominantly white individuals, provided the most basic necessities to sustain life, although it was not always the case. When it came to Individuals and/or corporations paying any kind of currency to state governments, they would pay taxes on their slaves with a maximum value of $300 per slave which was an amount set for tax purposes. On the other hand, the difference when it came to convict labor was that convict lessees would pay the state to contract their prisoners for labor. In other words, states became a ‘master’ of all ‘slaves’ and would simply rent them out as laborers to collect exponentially high profits. Some might have agreed to the fact that these were prisoners therefor the punishment was well deserved. That might have been a reasonable thought except that many of the prisoners were those same African-American slaves, or their relatives, whom were freed just over a decade prior. Since there