INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
SLAVERY; the condition of an individual who works for another individual against his or her will as a result of force, coercion, or imprisonment, regardless of whether the individual is paid for the labor.
The term involuntary servitude is used in ref-
erence to any type of slavery, peonage, or com-
pulsory labor for the satisfaction of debts. Two
essential elements of involuntary servitude are
involuntariness, which is compulsion to act
against one’s will, and servitude, which is some
form of labor for another. Imprisonment with-
out forced labor is not involuntary servitude,
nor is unpleasant labor when the only direct
penalty for not performing it is the withholding
of money or the loss of a job.
The importation of African slaves to the American colonies began in the seventeenth cen-
tury. By the time of the American Revolution, the
slave population had grown to more than five
hundred thousand people, most concentrated in
the southern colonies. The Framers of the U.S.
Constitution did not specifically refer to slavery
in the document they drafted in 1787, but they
did afford protection to southern slaveholding
states. They included provisions prohibiting
Congress from outlawing the slave trade until
1808 and requiring the return of fugitive slaves.
Between 1820 and 1860, political and legal
tensions over slavery steadily escalated. The U.S.
Supreme Court attempted to resolve the legal
status of African Americans in DRED SCOTT V.
SANDFORD, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691
(1857). The Court concluded that Congress was
powerless to extend the rights of U.S. citizenship
to African Americans.
With the secession of southern states and the
beginning of the Civil War in 1860 and 1861, the
Union government was under almost complete
control of free states. In 1865 Congress enacted
the THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, which the Union
states ratified. Section 1 of the amendment pro-
vides that “[n]either slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly con-
victed, shall exist within the United States, or
any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Section 2
gives Congress the authority to enforce the pro-
visions of section 1.
The Thirteenth Amendment makes involun-
tary servitude unlawful whether the compulsion
is by a government or by a private person. The
penalty for violation of the amendment must be
prescribed by law. Although the principal pur-
pose of the amendment was to abolish African
slavery, it also abolished other forms of compul-
sory labor similar to slavery, no matter what
they are called. For example, it abolished bond
service and peonage, forms of compulsory serv-
ice based on a servant’s indebtedness to a master.
An individual has a right to refuse or discon-
tinue employment. No state can make the quit-
ting of work a crime, or establish criminal
sanctions that hold unwilling persons to a par-
ticular labor. A state may, however, withhold
unemployment or other benefits from those
who, without JUST CAUSE, refuse to perform
available gainful work.
A court has the authority to require a person
to perform affirmative acts that the person has a
legal duty to perform. It has generally been held,
however, that this power does not extend to com-
pelling the performance of labor or personal
services, even in cases where the obligated party
has been paid in advance. The remedy for failure
to perform obligated labor is generally limited to
monetary damages. A court may, without violat-
ing the Thirteenth Amendment, use its EQUITY
authority to enjoin, or prevent, a person from
working at a particular task. Equity authority is
the power of a court to issue injunctions that
direct parties to do or refrain from doing some-
thing. A court also may prevent an artist or per-
