The Thirteenth Amendment

XIII
Section 1. 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.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments can be collectively referred to as the Reconstruction Amendments, all adopted over a five-year period. I thought about treating them all together, but there is enough included in them that it makes sense to give them their own space.

This one could appear to be the most straightforward of the three. It is partially a formalization of what has already happened. Ratified on December 5th, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth had already passed. By the date of ratification, all slaves in the United States or anywhere under the jurisdiction of the States should have been freed. 

However, slavery had been enshrined in the Constitution, therefore it is appropriate that slavery's end be officially written, voted on and ratified, with no possible room for equivocation. And yet, equivocation was left.

Continuing to allow involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime became a loophole, where many freed Blacks were re-enslaved using the law as a tool and flouting justice in the process. For more information, you can read Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon, or watch the documentary it inspired: http://www.pbs.org/show/slavery-another-name/

At least one person drafting the amendments knew. All three Reconstruction Amendments have phrasing like that in Section 2 here: Congress shall have power to enforce. There will be a Civil Rights Act and a Voting Rights Act in the future, and the groundwork was laid here by someone with foresight.

Perhaps it was easy to see, shortly after a bloody war, how deeply some people would cling to the ability to maintain ownership of others. I think it is appropriate so close to Independence Day to remember that slavery was only designed to let others be rich. When something requires a lot of hard, backbreaking work to turn a good profit, that's when you need human chattel.

The right to be wealthy at the expense of others may be what some people envision for their pursuit of happiness, but it is not a human right. It requires the abuse of the rights of other humans.

But those who get a taste cling to it.