Main Purpose Of The 13th Amendment

The 13th Amendment, created out of the ashes of the American Civil War, declared that “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." It was an end to the harsh cruelty that was brought upon African Americans for generations; however, a loophole exists within a simple phrase: “except as a punishment for crime…”. Even though all Americans are considered free under the 13th Amendment on paper, in reality this cannot be further from the truth as people were still considered a slave to the state if they committed a crime. Over time though, this “hands-off” doctrine approach gradually started to shift throughout the 1960s and 70s because the Civil Rights Movement stretched far beyond just African Americans. For prisoners, it was a justifiable call to action for basic human rights.

On December 6, 1865 the 13th amendment was introduced to the U. S Constitution. This amendment allegedly proclaimed to abolish slavery. Yet, the interpretation of the

In 1865 Congress passed the thirteenth Amendment stating” Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and would essentially free an entire people from the chains of bondage. Many of the framers of the constitution were in fact slave owners. It is believed that as many as twenty five of the fifty members of the continental convention were slave holders at one time or another. Could the Constitution have been written in such a way that it would support slavery? The author, Steven Mitz writes: "Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the Constitution was 'defective from the start.' He pointed out that the framers had left out a majority of Americans when they wrote the phrase, 'We the People.'". Aside from the Bill of Rights, the Thirteenth Amendment is one of the most important amendments to the Constitution, in the fact that it effectively ended slavery in the United States.

Argument found in 13th: The mass increase of population in prison systems is a continuation of slavery that allegedly ended in 1865.

The original words of this document according to https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html were "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." This essentially meant that there would be no more slavery unless it was a punishment for a crime that was committed. As the war had just ended and the expansion of slavery had been stopped this amendment was put into place. With this being one of the most foolproof plans it was passed by the Congress on January 31, 1865 and ratified by the states on December 6,

Argument found in 13th: 13th states a problem about our 13th amendment claiming that everyone is free to their freedom but in all reality African Americans are still being targeted and put in prisons and treated like slaves for no reason.

Slavery is alive in the United States of America; it’s just morphed to fit itself into modern times. Every time I see the text of the 13th Amendment, I wonder if that little caveat was intentional or just really naïve.

The 13th amendment has got to be one of the most important amendments from the reconstruction era. It not only freed slaves from slavery, but it was the beginning of a whole new world. Though racism and segregation was still an issue, African Americans were no longer anyone’s “property.”

“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.”(US Const. amend. XIII, sec. 1) The 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States on December 6, 1865. The Amendment said that slavery or involuntary servitude was illegal

The 13th amendment of 1865 made people consider the use of slavery as a legal form of punishment for criminals. The amendment raises concerns over if African Americans were ever actually free in the United States. Although it states that the institution of slavery is illegal, it also states that slave labor is legal if in the form of punishment for incarcerated criminals. In 13th, Ava DuVernay employs the use of ethos, logos, and pathos through a variety of ways. Through the use of these techniques, Ava DuVernay connects them with vivid imagery to really drive her point that the 13th amendment did not necessarily end slavery, it just added a loophole that enslavers were able to use.

The most striking thing that I’ve learned from the documentary is the exponential increase of African-American incarcerated every year since the end of slavery

The Thirteenth Amendment states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction” (Amendment).

The movie starts by stating that one in four black men will serve in prison at least once in their lives (Duvernay).This immediately clues the viewer into what this documentary will be talking about, at least on a surface level. Most of the movie is filled with interviews from experts on the prison system in America from liberal activists to republican conservatives, all have something to say about imprisonment in America and very little of it is good. The movie recaps the struggle colored people have endured throughout their lives in America from the early days of slavery, to the days of Jim Crowe and finally to modern day prison life and how it is just another form of slavery. One of the main focuses of the film is that the great and might Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves and made them American citizens also contains a loophole that strips them of these very rights. The amendment contains a small snippet about how no man may be stripped of his rights except when charged as a criminal (Duvernay). This simple exceptional clause acts as the only way to currently enslave another human being in America, convict them and put them away so you can own their body and soul for life. This clause is where the movie gets it’s name Thirteenth. There isn’t much else to say about the movie without giving away too much, despite being a documentary this movie contains heavy emotional

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”