Robert H. Jackson

“ Resulting depression of working conditions and living standards affects not only the laborer under the system, but every other with whom his labor comes in competition. Whatever of social value there may be, and of course it is great, in enforcing contracts and collection of debts, Congress has put it beyond debate that no indebtedness warrants a suspension of the right to be free from compulsory service. ”

“ Deceit is not put beyond the power of the state because the cheat is a laborer nor because the device for swindling is an agreement to labor. But when the state undertakes to deal with this specialized form of fraud, it must respect the constitutional and statutory command that it may not make failure to labor in discharge of a debt any part of a crime. It may not directly or indirectly command involuntary servitude, even if it was voluntarily contracted for. ”

“ So far as the decision of the Court rests on the ground that the substantive section is unconstitutional on its face, the decision necessarily proceeds on the assumption that because of the Thirteenth Amendment a state is without power to punish a workman who fraudulently procures an advance of a wage when he intends not to work for it, or that the two sections in law and in fact are inseparable in their application so that the substantive section is tainted by the presumption section, although in this case it is not shown to have influenced the plea of guilty. ”

“ The second section provides that a refusal to perform labor for which one has contracted and been paid in advance is prima facie evidence of an intent to defraud under the first section which makes it a crime to obtain money with intent to defraud under a contract to perform labor. This conclusion is accepted as a proper interpretation of the Federal prohibitions. In the effort to obliterate compulsory labor to satisfy a debt Congress may invalidate a state law which coerces that labor by fear of a conviction obtained by a presumption of law which may be false in fact. ”

“ In not one has there been proof from which we fairly could say whether the Negro never intended to work out the advance, or quit because of some real or fancied grievance, or just got tired. If such statutes have ever on even one occasion been put to a worthier use in the records of any state court, it has not been called to our attention. ”

“ United States was a case from Florida in which the Federal Act was used as a sword and an employer convicted under it. This Court sustained it as constitutional and said of peonage: 'It may be defined as a status or condition of compulsory service, based upon the indebtedness of the peon to the master. The basal fact is indebtedness. * * * Peonage is sometimes classified as voluntary or involuntary; but this implies simply a difference in the mode of origin, but none in the character of the servitude. The one exists where the debtor voluntarily contracts to enter the service of his creditor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the master can compel and the laborer cannot escape the obligation to go on, there is no power below to redress and no incentive above to relieve a harsh overlordship or unwholesome conditions of work. ”

“ Congress enacted the legislation set out in note 8 of the Court's opinion which declared invalid laws of a state by virtue of which involuntary service is enforced or attempted to be enforced in liquidation of any debt. This Court reiterates today in accordance with its previous rulings that the second section of the Florida statute, § 817.10, set out in note one of today's opinion, is invalid under the Thirteenth Amendment and the Federal Act because this second section enforces labor by fear of conviction of the crime denounced in the first section. ”

“ This congressional policy means that no state can make the quitting of work any component of a crime, or make criminal sanctions available for holding unwilling persons to labor. The federal statutory test is a practical inquiry into the utilization of an act as well as its mere form and terms.
Where peonage has existed in the United States it has done so chiefly by virtue of laws like the statute in question. Whether the statute did or did not include the presumption seems to have made little difference in its practical effect. ”

“ Conviction under the statute results not in peonage, work for a debt, but in punishment for crime, probably in the county work house. Cf. United States v. Reynolds, 235 U.S. 133, 149, 35 S.Ct. 86, 90, 59 L.Ed. 162. The conception embodied in the Court's opinion that the fear of conviction for his fraud might compel the defendant to work as agreed is without basis in the record. At any rate fear of punishment is supposed to be a deterrent to crime. ”

“ To make a false representation the subject of an indictment, or of an action, two things are generally necessary, viz., that it should be a statement likely to impose upon one exercising common prudence and caution, and that it should be the statement of an existing fact. ”

“ Georgia both sections of the Act were held unconstitutional. There the State relied on the presumption to convict. But it was not denied that a state has power reasonably to prescribe the prima facie inferences to be drawn from circumstantial evidence. It was the substance of the crime to establish which the presumption was invoked that gave a forbidden aspect to that method of short-cutting the road to conviction. The decision striking down both sections was not, as the Supreme Court of Florida thought, a casual and unconsidered use of the plural. Mr. ”

“ Florida Statutes 1941, §§ 32.05, 33.03, 36.01, F.S.A.↑ Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart in The Southern South, after reviewing and unsparingly condemning evidences of peonage in some regions, says, 'Much of the peonage is simply a desperate attempt to make men earn their living. The trouble is that nobody is wise enough to invent a method of compelling specific performance of a labor contract which shall not carry with it the principle of bondage.' P. 287.↑ United States v. ”