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.
The 13th amendment (XIII) has outlived its usefulness. At the time of its proposal and ratification of XIII was necessary to overcome the blight upon American principles of liberty that condoned the keeping of slaves based on their race. Race-based slavery was defended by such notables as John C. Calhoun who argued in his (in)famous Disquisition of Government that technological superiority was all the justification whites required to enslave blacks. Mr. Calhoun obviously lacked the requisite foresight to deduce blacks could become quite adroit at using gunpowder and steam engines…not to mention economics, jurisprudence, education, politics, engineering, the military etc. The issue of intellectual inferiority is plain to see and it isn’t those of African descent. Fortunately today those who view others as inferior based solely upon genetic happenstance are blessedly few and that is why it is time to repeal XIII.
Slavery, in days gone by, was a condition that resulted as a consequence of poverty or war. To the discussion of the spoils of war I shall leave that for another essay as to why genocide is not necessarily a dirty word so that I may focus, undistracted, on slavery as a remedy for poverty.
The ancients were certainly not strangers to the giving of alms or that some people were physically incapable of working but for the chronically impoverished who were also able-bodied slavery was often a recompense for their condition and I would argue there is a constitutional argument for it as well.
In the current political debate gripping America we see a class among the polity that are of the opinion that education, housing, healthcare, food, vocational training and jobs are the responsibility of the government to guarantee in adequate quantity. In olden days people who lived under such conditions were deemed slaves.
Some might complain that slaves lacked the freedom of personhood that liberals, in spite of their materialistic grab-fests. Well, if a person has a home supplied by government subsidy and construction we must ask how they expect to maintain their IV amendment rights to be secure in their property or persons when those homes are a public asset that must be maintained for later use. Ditto healthcare; he who pays the piper calls the tune. In short: those who are on the dole are beholden to those who are doling.
Alas the XIII amendment prevents proper enforcement of this principle.
What is worse is the fact that those who bear the tax burden have the least amount of say in the way their money is spent. A case can be made that when Americans pay their taxes—both rich and poor—for public services such as police, firefighters, the military etc that they each benefit. Benjamin Franklin even went so far as to justify progressive taxation for a police department because rich people had more real property to protect than the poor. But when it comes to social welfare the rich are the least likely to require social services despite the higher (and exclusive) burden they are expected to endure.
I don’t know about you but the last time I read the Constitution it was unlawful to take property from a law-abiding American without due compensation. Unlike the police who repay the rich through equal enforcement of the law the rich pay for welfare and do not gain any service from the poor whom they are required to support. What’s worse is the fact that the poor are numerically superior bloc that wields far more power each election cycle than the rich from whom the poor demand ever-increasing entitlements.
Now I admit every now and again a person can be down on their luck and we are a charitable nation. I propose that a person can remain on social subsidy for 9 months without penalty. However, upon entering the 10th month of requiring social services (total lifetime, not some start-stop arrangement that can be abused) the recipient can be hired out in a state of indentured servitude not to exceed 7 years. A person who exceeds 12 months can be outright sold. All proceeds from public auction are then spent to retire public debts.
It should be fairly self-evident that any person so chronically in need of public support probably lacks the requisite wherewithal to support themselves and probably needs to be permanently placed under the care of a master that has a vested economic interest in the slave’s well-being.
Of course I’m willing to hazard a guess that were this policy ever instituted the welfare rolls would all but evaporate within 6 months.
I would certainly enjoy a liberal's retort to my thesis.
