Plessy v. Ferguson · ¶8

1. That it does not conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, is too clear for argument. Slavery implies involuntary servitude — a state of bondage; the ownership of mankind as a chattel, or at least the control of the labor and services of one man for the benefit of another, and the absence of a legal right to the disposal of his own person, property and services. This amendment was said in the Slaughter-house cases, 16 Wall. 36, to have been intended primarily to abolish slavery, as it had been previously known in this country, and that it equally forbade Mexican peonage or the Chinese coolie trade, when they amounted to slavery or involuntary servitude, and that the use of the word “ servitude ” was intended to prohibit the use of all forms of involuntary slavery, of whatever class or name. It was…

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 163, at 537 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
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