Your knowledge of government and slavery in the United States--what does the Constitution say today?

Are you referring to the original U.S. Constitution or the current U.S. Constitution incorporating the 13th Amendment?

What is your definition of "common knowledge?"

What makes you assume knowing the U.S. Constitution is considered "common knowledge?"

Common knowledge is something known by most people. The Constitution is a hefty, living document (in that it can be amended over time). I do not understand why knowledge of the U.S. Constitution is "common knowledge." Better examples of common knowledge might be water freezes at 0C/32F.

Your interview project seems biased based on the use of "common knowledge." I'd be concerned of your sample size (population) not being an accurate representation of defining something large in scale as "common knowledge" of the masses.

Are you including Americans only in your query or can anyone take the poll? Are non-Americans supposed to know of the topic?

Maybe you can re-work the question with more details.

Enlightened said:

Are you referring to the original U.S. Constitution or the current U.S. Constitution incorporating the 13th Amendment?

What is your definition of "common knowledge?"

What makes you assume knowing the U.S. Constitution is considered "common knowledge?"

Common knowledge is something known by most people. The Constitution is a hefty, living document (in that it can be amended over time). I do not understand why knowledge of the U.S. Constitution is "common knowledge." Better examples of common knowledge might be water freezes at 0C/32F.

Your interview project seems biased based on the use of "common knowledge." I'd be concerned of your sample size (population) not being an accurate representation of defining something large in scale as "common knowledge" of the masses.

Are you including Americans only in your query or can anyone take the poll? Are non-Americans supposed to know of the topic?

Maybe you can re-work the question with more details.

Click to expand...

This ^

Without knowing if you mean the original Constitution before or after all the current Amendments your question sounds like a trick question.

The three choices offered are all in the present tense. That does narrow the time frame for the appropriate answer to the present.

Yes, as written it does kind of feel like a trick question. Lots of people see a clear separation between the original and the amendments. I'd suggest rephrasing to eliminate the doubt of what you intend.

The 13th Amendment declares: "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."

I voted it is not allowed, because the Amendments are as much part of the US Constitution, as it is applied today, as the original document. I assumed the question referred to our current version of the Constitution.

I reply for the original constitution. (Based on the poll question. Ignoring the title of the post as irrelevant, since it usually is.) Since the 13th Amendment obviously slavery is forbidden (except for legal punishment -- all those chain gangs & prison plantations).

Roxxsmom said:

The 13th Amendment declares: "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."

I voted it is not allowed, because the Amendments are as much part of the US Constitution, as it is applied today, as the original document. I assumed the question referred to our current version of the Constitution.

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Bolding mine. As the question is worded, slavery is allowed in that circumstance.

The 13th also only referred to chattal slavery, which in the US was based on heredity unless the individual was explicitly freed (read "Twelve Years a Slave" for a firsthand account of heredity trumping legally free status). The less formal, less institutionalized "wage slavery" is still very much a thing. Although there are laws on the books to protect workers from wage slavery, wage slavery itself is not prohibited by the Constitution.

Looks like most have no idea what the Constitution says. Slavery is allowed under certain circumstances.

Chris P said:

The less formal, less institutionalized "wage slavery" is still very much a thing. Although there are laws on the books to protect workers from wage slavery, wage slavery itself is not prohibited by the Constitution.

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"Wage slavery" is a metaphor, not a form of slavery. Are you thinking instead of debt slavery? That's different, and certainly exists.

TheListener said:

Looks like most have no idea what the Constitution says. Slavery is allowed under certain circumstances.

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What circumstances?

Kjbartolotta said:

What circumstances?

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Roxxmom quoted the relevant text above:

"The 13th Amendment declares: "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."

Click to expand...

I've always thought that prisoners had the choice whether to work or not. Apparently this is not so?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prisoner-speak-out-american-slave-labor-strike

One would be well advised not to equate post-conviction incarceration with slavery/involuntary servitude; that's the equivalent of an endless rabbit hole fraught with bandied semantics and provocative emotional triggers, inevitably destined to devolve in more fruitless debate--one of an instructor's favored traps for unwary first year law students.

Chris P said:

Bolding mine. As the question is worded, slavery is allowed in that circumstance.

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I figured punishment for crimes falls more under involuntary servitude, since the condition is generally temporary and not passed on to one's children. Is there an actually difference between slavery and involuntary servitude, or are the terms interchangeable? The wording of the Constitution implies that there is a difference (since it uses both terms with an "nor"), but the form of chattel slavery practiced in the US certainly isn't the only form of involuntary servitude that has been referred to as slavery.

But there are different ways to interpret wordings, obviously, or we wouldn't need courts. Does the absence of a comma between "slavery" and "nor indentured servitude" imply that either could be imposed as a penalty for crimes? Or is it only involuntary servitude that can be imposed under certain circumstances? I interpreted it in the latter way.

This is not the same as "having no idea what the Constitution says."

I don't know what might happen under the current political climate if a state ever tries to impose slavery again, as it was once practiced in the US, as a punishment for crimes. I hope we don't find out. I can see a dystopian scenario where it is imposed as a penalty on undocumented immigrants, for instance.

benbenberi said:

Roxxmom quoted the relevant text above:

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Welp.

Though, despite my issues with the carceral system, I can't recall any situations where someone was sentenced to slavery. Now I'm curious about this.

Chain gangs can be seen as slavery.

Because of way that descendents of pre-Emancipation slaves have been targeted by justice systems then forced to work without pay in prison, sometimes until death, there is an argument that people are sentenced into slavery.

There's also a problem with the enslavement of immigrants and migrant workers, who are lured into the U.S. for jobs but then are neither allowed to quit nor paid for their work as promised. Those cases aren't as well reported, but then, neither are the disappearance of the workers who try to escape but never make it back to their own families.

The problem I have with the poll's wording is that it's not clear on whose interpretation of the Constitution matters in what it allows. My reading has not been the same the Supreme Court, whose justices disagree with each other.

I selected "does NOT allow" despite the state by state variations on the definition of slavery and involuntary servitude.

The forced labor on some of the big Southern prison farms (like Angola in LA) has been described as a direct successor to plantation slavery, and legally justified by the exception in the 13th Amendment. This Wikipedia article has a lot of links.

Watch the wording. If C is correct, then A is also correct...

Of course, now you know how researchers prove the conclusions they arrived at prior to doing the research.

Jeff