Race, Rights, and the Thirteenth Amendment: Defining the Badges
and Incidents of Slavery William M. Carter Jr. University of
Pittsburgh - School of Law March 1, 2006 UC Davis Law Review,
Vol. 40, p. 1311, 2007 Case Research Paper Series in Legal
Studies Working Paper 06-04 The Supreme Court has held that the
Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude
and also empowers Congress to end any lingering "badges and
incidents of slavery." The Court, however, has failed to provide
any guidance as to defining the badges and incidents of slavery
when Congress has failed to identify a condition or form of
discrimination as such. This has led the lower courts to
conclude that the judiciary's role under the Thirteenth
Amendment is limited to enforcing only the Amendment's
prohibition of literal enslavement. This article has two primary
objectives. First, it offers an interpretive framework for
defining the badges and incidents of slavery that is true to
both the Amendment's drafters' original purposes