Prima facie evidence is sufficient to outweigh the
presumption of innocence, and, if not met by opposing evidence, to
support a verdict.
Kelly v.
Jackson, 6 Pet. 632.
The validity of a statute that authorizes a jury to convict on
prima facie evidence must be judged by the fact that the
jury may convict even if it is not made the duty of the jury to do
so.
Although a state statute in terms be to punish fraud, if its
natural and inevitable purpose is to punish for crime for failing
to perform contracts of labor, thus compelling such performance, it
violates the Thirteenth Amendment, and is unconstitutional.
A constitutional prohibition cannot be transgressed indirectly
by creating a statutory presumption any more than by direct
enactment, and a state cannot compel involuntary servitude in
carrying out contracts of personal service by creating a
presumption that the person committing the breach is guilty of
intent to defraud merely because he fails to perform the
contract.
While states may, without denying due process of law, enact that
proof of one fact shall be
prima facie evidence of the
main fact in issue, the inference must not be purely arbitrary;
there must be rational relation between the two facts, and the
accused must have proper opportunity to submit all the facts
bearing on the issue.
While its immediate concern was African slavery, the Thirteenth
Amendment was a charter of universal civil freedom for all persons
of whatever race, color, or estate, under the flag.
The words "involuntary servitude" have a larger meaning than
slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment prohibited all control by
coercion of the personal service of one man for the benefit of
another.
While the Thirteenth Amendment is self-executing, Congress has
power to secure its complete enforcement by appropriate legislation
and the Peonage Act of March 2, 1867, and §§ 1990 and 5526,
Rev.Stat., are valid exercises of this authority.
Clyatt v.
United States, 197 U. S. 207.
A peon is one who is compelled to work for his creditor until
his debt
Page 219 U. S. 220
is paid, and the fact that he contracted to perform the labor
which is sought to be compelled does not withdraw the attempted
enforcement from the condemnation of the peonage acts.
The federal anti-peonage acts are necessarily violated by any
state legislation which seeks to compel service or labor by making
it a crime to fail or refuse to perform it.
Although this Court may not impute to a state an actual motive
to oppress by a statute which that state enacts, it must consider
the natural operation of such statute and strike it down if it
becomes an instrument of coercion forbidden by the federal
Constitution.
Section 4730 of the Code of Alabama as amended in 1907, insofar
as it makes the refusal or failure to perform labor contracted for
without refunding the money or paying for property received
prima facie evidence of the commission of the crime
defined by such section, and, when read in connection with the rule
of evidence of that state, that the accused cannot testify in
regard to uncommunicated motives, is unconstitutional as in
conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment and of the legislation
authorized by it and enacted by Congress
Quaere, and not necessary now to decide, whether such
section is, under the Fourteenth Amendment, an unconstitutional
deprivation of property without due process of law or denial of
equal protection of the laws.
161 Ala. 78 reversed.
The facts, which involve the constitutionality of § 4730 of the
Code of Alabama as construed by the courts of that state and the
validity of a conviction thereunder, are stated in the opinion.
Page 219 U. S. 227
MR. JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court:
This is a writ of error to review a judgment of the Supreme
Court of the State of Alabama, affirming a judgment of conviction
in the Montgomery City Court. The statute upon which the conviction
was based is assailed as in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment
of the Constitution of the United States upon the ground that it
deprived the plaintiff in error of his liberty without due process
of law and denied him the equal protection of the laws, and also of
the Thirteenth Amendment, and of the act of Congress providing for
the enforcement of that Amendment, in that the effect of the
statute is to enforce involuntary servitude by compelling personal
service in liquidation of a debt.
The statute in question is § 4730 of the Code of Alabama of
1896, as amended in 1903 and 1907. The section of the Code as it
stood before the amendments provided that any person who, with
intent to injure or defraud his employer, entered into a written
contract for service, and thereby obtained from his employer money
or other personal property, and with like intent and without just
cause, and without refunding the money or paying for the property,
refused to perform the service, should be punished as if he had
stolen it. In 1903 (Gen. Acts, Ala., 1903, p. 345) the section was
amended so as to make the refusal or failure to perform the
service, or to refund the money, or pay for the property, without
just cause,
prima facie evidence of the intent to injure
or defraud. This amendment was enlarged by that of 1907. Gen.Acts,
Ala., 1907, p. 636. The section, thus amended, reads as
follows:
"Any person who, with intent to injure or defraud his
Page 219 U. S. 228
employer, enters into a contract in writing for the performance
of any act of service, and thereby obtains money or other personal
property from such employer, and with like intent, and without just
cause, and without refunding such money or paying for such
property, refuses or fails to perform such act or service must on
conviction be punished by a fine in double the damage suffered by
the injured party, but not more than $300, one-half of said fine to
go to the county and one-half to the party injured; and any person
who, with intent to injure or defraud his landlord, enters into any
contract in writing for the rent of land, and thereby obtains any
money or other personal property from such landlord, and with like
intent, without just cause, and without refunding such money or
paying for such property, refuses or fails to cultivate such land,
or to comply with his contract relative thereto, must on conviction
be punished by fine in double the damage suffered by the injured
party, but not more than $300, one-half of said fine to go to the
county and one-half to the party injured. And the refusal or
failure of any person who enters into such contract to perform such
act or service or to cultivate such land or refund such money or
pay for such property without just cause shall be
prima
facie evidence of the intent to injure his employer or
landlord or defraud him. That all laws and parts of laws in
conflict with the provisions hereof be and the same are hereby
repealed."
There is also a rule of evidence enforced by the courts of
Alabama, which must be regarded as having the same effect as if
read into the statute itself, that the accused, for the purpose of
rebutting the statutory presumption, shall not be allowed to
testify "as to his uncommunicated motives, purpose, or intention."
Bailey v. State, 161 Ala. 77, 78.
Bailey, the plaintiff in error, was committed for detention on
the charge of obtaining fifteen dollars under a
Page 219 U. S. 229
contract in writing with intent to injure or defraud his
employer. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus challenging the
validity of the statute. His discharge was refused, and the supreme
court of the state affirmed the order, holding the statute to be
constitutional. 158 Ala. 18. On writ of error from this Court, it
was held that the case was brought here prematurely, and the
questions now presented were expressly reserved.
Bailey v.
Alabama, 211 U. S. 452.
Having failed to obtain his release on habeas corpus, Bailey was
indicted on the following charge:
"The Grand Jury of said county charge that, before the finding
of this indictment, Alonzo Bailey, with intent to injure or defraud
his employer, the Riverside Company, a corporation, entered into a
written contract to perform labor or services for the Riverside
Company, a corporation, and obtained thereby the sum of fifteen
dollars from the said the Riverside Company, and afterwards with
like intent, and without just cause, failed or refused to perform
such labor or services, or to refund such money, against the peace
and dignity of the State of Alabama."
Motion to quash and a demurrer to the indictment were overruled.
Upon the trial, the following facts appeared: on December 26, 1907,
Bailey entered into a written contract with the Riverside Company,
which provided:
"That I, Lonzo Bailey, for and in consideration of the sum of
Fifteen Dollars in money, this day in hand paid to me by said the
Riverside Company, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, I,
the said Lonzo Bailey, do hereby consent, contract, and agree to
work and labor for the said Riverside Company as a farm hand on
their Scott's Bend place in Montgomery County, Alabama, from the 30
day of Dec., 1907, to the 30 day of Dec., 1908, at and for the sum
of 12.00 per month. "
Page 219 U. S. 230
"And the said Lonzo Bailey agrees to render respectful and
faithful service to the said the Riverside Company, and to perform
diligently and actively all work pertaining to such employment, in
accordance with the instructions of the said the Riverside Company
or agent."
"And the said the Riverside Company, in consideration of the
agreement above mentioned of the said Lonzo Bailey, hereby employs
the said Lonzo Bailey as such farm hand for the time above set out,
and agrees to pay the said Lonzo Bailey the sum of $10.75 per
month."
The manager of the employing company testified that, at the time
of entering into this contract, there were present only the witness
and Bailey, and that the latter then obtained from the company the
sum of fifteen dollars; that Bailey worked under the contract
throughout the month of January and for three or four days in
February, 1908, and then,
"without just cause, and without refunding the money, ceased to
work for said Riverside Company, and has not since that time
performed any service for said company in accordance with or under
said contract, and has refused and failed to perform any further
service thereunder, and has, without just cause, refused and failed
to refund said fifteen dollars."
He also testified, in response to a question from the attorney
for the defendant and against the objection of the state, that
Bailey was a negro. No other evidence was introduced.
The court, after defining the crime in the language of the
statute, charged the jury, in accordance with its terms, as
follows:
"And the refusal of any person who enters into such contract to
perform such act or service, or refund such money, or pay for such
property, without just cause, shall be
prima facie
evidence of the intent to injure his employer, or to defraud
him."
Bailey excepted to these instructions, and requested the court
to instruct the jury that the statute and the
Page 219 U. S. 231
provision creating the presumption were invalid, and further
that
"the refusal or failure of the defendant to perform the service
alleged in the indictment, or to refund the money obtained from the
Riverside Company under the contract between it and the defendant,
without cause, does not of itself make out a
prima facie
case of the defendant's intent to injure or defraud said Riverside
Company."
The court refused these instructions, and Bailey took
exception.
The jury found the accused guilty, fixed the damages sustained
by the injured party at fifteen dollars, and assessed a fine of
thirty dollars. Thereupon Bailey was sentenced by the court to pay
the fine of thirty dollars and the costs, and in default thereof to
hard labor "for twenty days in lieu of said fine, and one hundred
and sixteen days on account of said costs."
On appeal to the supreme court of the state, the
constitutionality of the statute was again upheld, and the judgment
affirmed. 161 Ala. 75.
We at once dismiss from consideration the fact that the
plaintiff in error is a black man. While the action of a state,
through its officers charged with the administration of a law fair
in appearance, may be of such a character as to constitute a denial
of the equal protection of the laws (
Yick Wo v. Hopkins,
118 U. S. 356,
118 U. S.
373), such a conclusion is here neither required nor
justified. The statute, on its face, makes no racial
discrimination, and the record fails to show its existence in fact.
No question of a sectional character is presented, and we may view
the legislation in the same manner as if it had been enacted in New
York or in Idaho. Opportunities for coercion and oppression, in
varying circumstances, exist in all parts of the Union, and the
citizens of all the states are interested in the maintenance of the
constitutional guaranties the consideration of which is here
involved.
Page 219 U. S. 232
Prior to the amendment of the year 1903, enlarged in 1907, the
statute did not make the mere breach of the contract, under which
the employee had obtained from his employer money which was not
refunded or property which was not paid for, a crime. The essential
ingredient of the offense was the intent of the accused to injure
or defraud. To justify conviction, it was necessary that this
intent should be established by competent evidence, aided only by
such inferences as might logically be derived from the facts
proved, and should not be the subject of mere surmise or arbitrary
assumption.
This was the construction which the Supreme Court of Alabama
placed upon the statute, as it then stood, in
Ex parte
Riley, 94 Ala. 82. In that case, the court said (pp. 83,
84):
"The ingredients of this statutory offense are: (1) a contract
in writing by the accused for the performance of any act or
service; (2) an intent on the part of the accused, when he entered
into the contract, to injure or defraud his employer; (3) the
obtaining by the accused of money or other personal property from
such employer by means of such contract entered into with such
intent; and (4) the refusal by the accused, with like intent, and
without just cause, and without refunding such money, or paying for
such property, to perform such act or service. This statute by no
means provides that a person who has entered into a written
contract for the performance of services, under which he has
obtained money or other personal property, is punishable as if he
had stolen such money or other personal property, upon his refusal
to perform the contract, without refunding the money or paying for
the property. A mere breach of a contract is not by the statute
made a crime. The criminal feature of the transaction is wanting
unless the accused entered into the contract with intent to injure
or defraud his employer, and unless his refusal to perform
Page 219 U. S. 233
was with like intent and without just cause. That there was an
intent to injure or defraud the employer, both when the contract
was entered into and when the accused refused performance, are
facts which must be shown by the evidence. As the intent is the
design, purpose, resolve, or determination in the mind of the
accused, it can rarely be proved by direct evidence, but must be
ascertained by means of inferences from the facts and circumstances
developed by the proof.
Carlisle v. State, 76 Ala. 75;
Mack v. State, 63 Ala. 138. In the absence, however, of
evidence from which such inferences may be drawn, the jury are not
justified in indulging in mere unsupported conjectures,
speculations, or suspicions as to intentions which were not
disclosed by any visible or tangible act, expression, or
circumstance.
Green v. State, 68 Ala. 539."
See also Dorsey v. State, 111 Ala. 40;
McIntosh v.
State, 117 Ala. 128.
We pass, then, to the consideration of the amendment, through
the operation of which under the charge of the trial court this
conviction was obtained. No longer was it necessary for the
prosecution to comply with the rule of the
Riley case,
supra, in order to establish the intent to injure or
defraud which, as the court said, constituted the gist of the
offense. It was "the difficulty in proving the intent, made patent
by that decision," which "suggested the amendment of 1903."
Bailey v. State, 158 Ala. p. 25. By this amendment, it was
provided, in substance, that the refusal or failure to perform the
service contracted for, or to refund the money obtained without
just cause should be
prima facie evidence of the intent to
injure or defraud.
But the refusal or failure to perform the service without just
cause constitutes the breach of the contract. The justice of the
grounds of refusal or failure must, of course, be determined by the
contractual obligation assumed.
Page 219 U. S. 234
Whatever the reason for leaving the service, if, judged by the
terms of the contract, it is insufficient in law, it is not "just
cause." The money received and repayable, nothing more being shown,
constitutes a mere debt. The asserted difficulty of proving the
intent to injure or defraud is thus made the occasion for
dispensing with such proof so far as the
prima facie case
is concerned. And the mere breach of a contract for personal
service, coupled with the mere failure to pay a debt which was to
be liquidated in the course of such service, is made sufficient to
warrant a conviction.
It is no answer to say that the jury must find, and here found,
that a fraudulent intent existed. The jury, by their verdict,
cannot add to the facts before them. If nothing be shown but a mere
breach of a contract of service and a mere failure to pay a debt,
the jury have nothing else to go upon, and the evidence becomes
nothing more because of their finding. Had it not been for this
statutory presumption, supplied by the amendment, no one would be
heard to say that Bailey could have been convicted.
Prima facie evidence is sufficient evidence to outweigh
the presumption of innocence, and, if not met by opposing evidence,
to support a verdict of guilty. "It is such as, in judgment of law,
is sufficient to establish the fact, and, if not rebutted, remains
sufficient for the purpose."
Kelly v.
Jackson, 6 Pet. 632.
We are not impressed with the argument that the Supreme Court of
Alabama has construed the amendment to mean that the jury is not
controlled by the presumption, if unrebutted, and still may find
the accused not guilty. That court, in its opinion, said:
"Again, it must be borne in mind that the rule of evidence fixed
by the statute does not make it the duty of the jury to convict on
the evidence referred to in the enactment, if unrebutted, whether
satisfied thereby of the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable
doubt or not. On the contrary,
Page 219 U. S. 235
with such evidence before them, the jury are still left free to
find the accused guilty or not guilty, according as they may be
satisfied of his guilt or not, by the whole evidence."
161 Ala. 78.
But the controlling construction of the statute is the
affirmance of this judgment of conviction. It is not sufficient to
declare that the statute does not make it the
duty of the
jury to convict where there is no other evidence but the breach of
the contract and the failure to pay the debt. The point is that, in
such a case, the statute
authorizes the jury to convict.
It is not enough to say that the jury may not accept that evidence
as alone sufficient, for the jury may accept it, and they have the
express warrant of the statute to accept it as a basis for their
verdict. And it is in this light that the validity of the statute
must be determined.
It is urged that the time and circumstances of the departure
from service may be such as to raise not only an inference, but a
strong inference, of fraudulent intent. There was no need to create
a statutory presumption, and it was not created for such a case.
Where circumstances are shown permitting a fair inference of
fraudulent purpose, the case falls within the rule of
Ex parte
Riley (supra), which governed prosecutions under the statute
before the amendment was made. The "difficulty," which admittedly
the amendment was intended to surmount, did not exist where natural
inferences sufficed. Plainly the object of the statute was to hit
cases which were destitute of such inferences, and to provide that
the mere breach of the contract and the mere failure to pay the
debt might do duty in their absence.
While, in considering the natural operation and effect of the
statute, as amended, we are not limited to the particular facts of
the case at the bar, they present an illuminating illustration. We
may briefly restate them. Bailey made a contract to work for a year
at $12 a month. He
Page 219 U. S. 236
received $15, and he was to work this out, being entitled
monthly only to $10.75 of his wages. No one was present when he
made the contract but himself and the manager of the employing
company. There is not a particle of evidence of any circumstance
indicating that he made the contract or received the money with any
intent to injure or defraud his employer. On the contrary, he
actually worked for upwards of a month. His motive in leaving does
not appear, the only showing being that it was without legal excuse
and that he did not repay the money received. For this he is
sentenced to a fine of thirty dollars and to imprisonment at hard
labor, in default of the payment of the fine and costs, for 136
days. Was not the case the same in effect as if the statute had
made it a criminal act to leave the service without just cause and
without liquidating the debt? To say that he has been found guilty
of an intent to injure or defraud his employer, and not merely for
breaking his contract and not paying his debt, is a distinction
without a difference to Bailey.
Consider the situation of the accused under this statutory
presumption. If, at the outset, nothing took place but the making
of the contract and the receipt of the money, he could show nothing
else. If there was no legal justification for his leaving his
employment, he could show none. If he had not paid the debt, there
was nothing to be said as to that. The law of the state did not
permit him to testify that he did not intend to injure or defraud.
Unless he were fortunate enough to be able to command evidence of
circumstances affirmatively showing good faith, he was helpless. He
stood stripped by the statute of the presumption of innocence and
exposed to conviction for fraud upon evidence only of breach of
contract and failure to pay.
It is said that we may assume that a fair jury would convict
only where the circumstances sufficiently indicated a fraudulent
intent. Why should this be assumed
Page 219 U. S. 237
in the face of the statute and upon this record? In the present
case, the jury did convict, although there is an absence of
evidence sufficient to establish fraud under the familiar rule that
fraud will not be presumed, and the obvious explanation of the
verdict is that the trial court, in accordance with the statute,
charged the jury that refusal to perform the service, or to repay
the money, without just cause, constituted
prima facie
evidence of the commission of the offense which the statute
defined. That is, the jury were told in effect that the evidence,
under the statutory rule, was sufficient, and hence they treated it
as such. There is no basis for an assumption that the jury would
have acted differently if Bailey had worked for three months, or
six months, or nine months, if in fact his debt had not been paid.
The normal assumption is that the jury will follow the statute,
and, acting in accordance with the authority it confers, will
accept as sufficient what the statute expressly so describes.
It may further be observed that, under the statute, there is no
punishment for the alleged fraud if the service is performed or the
money refunded. If the service is rendered in liquidation of the
debt, there is no punishment, and if it is not rendered, and the
money is not refunded, that fact alone is sufficient for
conviction. By a statute passed by the Legislature of Alabama in
1901, it was made a misdemeanor for any person who had made a
written contract to labor for or serve another for any given time
to leave the service before the expiration of the contract and
without the consent of the employer, and to make a second contract
of similar nature with another person without giving the second
employer notice of the existence of the first contract. This was
held unconstitutional upon the ground that it interfered with
freedom of contract.
Toney v. State, 141 Ala. 120. But,
judging it by its necessary operation and obvious effect, the
fundamental purpose plainly was to compel, under the sanction
Page 219 U. S. 238
of the criminal law, the enforcement of the contract for
personal service, and the same purpose, tested by like criteria,
breathes despite its different phraseology through the amendments
of 1903 and 1907 of the statute here in question.
We cannot escape the conclusion that, although the statute in
terms is to punish fraud, still its natural and inevitable effect
is to expose to conviction for crime those who simply fail or
refuse to perform contracts for personal service in liquidation of
a debt, and, judging its purpose by its effect, that it seeks in
this way to provide the means of compulsion through which
performance of such service may be secured. The question is whether
such a statute is constitutional.
This Court has frequently recognized the general power of every
legislature to prescribe the evidence which shall be received, and
the effect of that evidence, in the courts of its own government.
Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.
S. 698,
149 U. S. 479.
In the exercise of this power, numerous statutes have been enacted
providing that proof of one fact shall be
prima facie
evidence of the main fact in issue, and where the inference is not
purely arbitrary, and there is a rational relation between the two
facts, and the accused is not deprived of a proper opportunity to
submit all the facts bearing upon the issue, it has been held that
such statutes do not violate the requirements of due process of
law.
Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585;
Mobile, Jackson & Kansas City Railroad Co. v.
Turnipseed, decided December 19, 1910,
ante, p.
219 U. S. 35.
The latest expression upon this point is found in the case last
cited, where the court, by MR. JUSTICE LURTON, said:
"That a legislative presumption of one fact from evidence of
another may not constitute a denial of due process of law, or a
denial of the equal protection of the law, it is only essential
that there shall be some rational connection between the fact
proved and the ultimate fact
Page 219 U. S. 239
presumed, and that the inference of one fact from proof of
another shall not be so unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary
mandate. So also, it must not, under guise of regulating the
presentation of evidence, operate to preclude the party from the
right to present his defense to the main fact thus presumed. If a
legislative provision not unreasonable in itself, prescribing a
rule of evidence in either criminal or civil cases does not shut
out from the party affected a reasonable opportunity to submit to
the jury in his defense all of the facts bearing upon the issue,
there is no ground for holding that due process of law has been
denied him."
In this class of cases, where the entire subject matter of the
legislation is otherwise within state control, the question has
been whether the prescribed rule of evidence interferes with the
guaranteed equality before the law, or violates those fundamental
rights and immutable principles of justice which are embraced
within the conception of due process of law. But where the conduct
or fact the existence of which is made the basis of the statutory
presumption itself falls within the scope of a provision of the
federal Constitution, a further question arises. It is apparent
that a constitutional prohibition cannot be transgressed indirectly
by the creation of a statutory presumption, any more than it can be
violated by direct enactment. The power to create presumptions is
not a means of escape from constitutional restrictions. And the
state may not in this way interfere with matters withdrawn from its
authority by the federal Constitution, or subject an accused to
conviction for conduct which it is powerless to proscribe.
In the present case, it is urged that the statute, as amended,
through the operation of the presumption for which it provides,
violates the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United
States and the act of Congress passed for its enforcement.
Page 219 U. S. 240
The Thirteenth Amendment provides:
"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."
"SEC 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation."
Pursuant to the authority thus conferred, Congress passed the
Act of March 2, 1867, c. 187, 14 Stat. 546, the provisions of which
are now found in §§ 1990 and 5526 of the Revised Statutes, as
follows:
"SEC. 1990. The holding of any person to service or labor under
the system known as peonage is abolished and forever prohibited in
the Territory of New Mexico, or in any other territory or state of
the United States; and all acts, laws, resolutions, orders,
regulations, or usages of the Territory of New Mexico, or of any
other territory or state, which have heretofore established,
maintained, or enforced, or by virtue of which any attempt shall
hereafter be made to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or
indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any
persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or
otherwise, are declared null and void."
"SEC. 5526. Every person who holds, arrests, returns, or causes
to be held, arrested, or returned, or in any manner aids in the
arrest or return, of any person to a condition of peonage, shall be
punished by a fine of not less than one thousand nor more than five
thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not less than one year nor
more than five years, or by both."
The language of the Thirteenth Amendment was not new. It
reproduced the historic words of the Ordinance of 1787 for the
Government of the Northwest Territory, and gave them unrestricted
application within the United States and all places subject to
their jurisdiction. While the immediate concern was with African
slavery, the
Page 219 U. S. 241
Amendment was not limited to that. It was a charter of universal
civil freedom for all persons, of whatever race, color, or estate,
under the flag.
The words involuntary servitude have a "larger meaning than
slavery."
"It was very well understood that, in the form of apprenticeship
for long terms, as it had been practiced in the West India Islands,
on the abolition of slavery by the English government, or by
reducing the slaves to the condition of serfs attached to the
plantation, the purpose of the article might have been evaded if
only the word 'slavery' had been used."
Slaughter-House
Cases, 16 Wall. 69. The plain intention was to
abolish slavery of whatever name and form and all its badges and
incidents; to render impossible any state of bondage; to make labor
free, by prohibiting that control by which the personal service of
one man is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit, which is
the essence of involuntary servitude.
While the Amendment was self-executing so far as its terms were
applicable to any existing condition, Congress was authorized to
secure its complete enforcement by appropriate legislation. As was
said in the Civil Rights Cases:
"By its own unaided force and effect, it abolished slavery and
established universal freedom. Still, legislation may be necessary
and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be
affected by it and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its
violation in letter or spirit. And such legislation may be primary
and direct in its character, for the amendment is not a mere
prohibition of state laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an
absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall
not exist in any part of the United States."
109 U.S. 20.
The Act of March 2, 1867 (Rev. Stat. §§ 1990, 5526,
supra), a was a valid exercise of this express authority.
Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207. It
declared that all laws of any state by virtue of which any attempt
should be made
"to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or
Page 219 U. S. 242
indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any
person as peons in liquidation of any debt or obligation or
otherwise"
should be null and void.
Peonage is a term descriptive of a condition which has existed
in Spanish America, and especially in Mexico. The essence of the
thing is compulsory service in payment of a debt. A peon is one who
is compelled to work for his creditor until his debt is paid. And,
in this explicit and comprehensive enactment, Congress was not
concerned with mere names or manner of description or with a
particular place or section of the country. It was concerned with a
fact, wherever it might exist -- with a condition, however named
and wherever it might be established, maintained, or enforced.
The fact that the debtor contracted to perform the labor which
is sought to be compelled does not withdraw the attempted
enforcement from the condemnation of the statute. The full intent
of the constitutional provision could be defeated with obvious
facility if, through the guise of contracts under which advances
had been made, debtors could be held to compulsory service. It is
the compulsion of the service that the statute inhibits, for when
that occurs, the condition of servitude is created, which would be
not less involuntary because of the original agreement to work out
the indebtedness. The contract exposes the debtor to liability for
the loss due to the breach, but not to enforced labor. This has
been so clearly stated by this Court in the case of
Clyatt,
supra, that discussion is unnecessary. The Court there
said:
"The constitutionality and scope of §§ 1990 and 5526 present the
first questions for our consideration. They prohibit peonage. What
is 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. As said by Judge Benedict,
delivering the opinion in
Jaremillo v. Romero, 1 N.M.
Page 219 U. S. 243
190, 194: 'One fact existed universally: all were indebted to
their masters. This was the cord by which they seemed bound to
their masters' service.' Upon this is based a condition of
compulsory service. 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. The other is forced upon the debtor by some provision of
law. But peonage, however created, is compulsory service,
involuntary servitude. The peon can release himself therefrom, it
is true, by the payment of the debt, but otherwise the service is
enforced. A clear distinction exists between peonage and the
voluntary performance of labor or rendering of services in payment
of a debt. In the latter case, the debtor, though contracting to
pay his indebtedness by labor or service, and subject like any
other contractor to an action for damages for breach of that
contract, can elect at any time to break it, and no law or force
compels performance or a continuance of the service. We need not
stop to consider any possible limits or exceptional cases, such as
the service of a sailor (
Robertson v. Baldwin,
165 U. S.
275), or the obligations of a child to its parents, or
of an apprentice to his master, or the power of the legislature to
make unlawful and punish criminally an abandonment by an employee
of his post of labor in any extreme cases. That which is
contemplated by the statute is compulsory service to secure the
payment of a debt."
197 U.S.
197 U. S.
215-216.
The act of Congress, nullifying all state laws by which it
should be attempted to enforce the "service or labor of any persons
as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise,"
necessarily embraces all legislation which seeks to compel the
service or labor by making it a crime to refuse or fail to perform
it. Such laws would furnish the readiest means of compulsion. The
Thirteenth
Page 219 U. S. 244
Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude except as punishment
for crime. But the exception, allowing full latitude for the
enforcement of penal laws, does not destroy the prohibition. It
does not permit slavery or involuntary servitude to be established
or maintained through the operation of the criminal law by making
it a crime to refuse to submit to the one or to render the service
which would constitute the other. The state may impose involuntary
servitude as a punishment for crime, but it may not compel one man
to labor for another in payment of a debt, by punishing him as a
criminal if he does not perform the service or pay the debt.
If the statute in this case had authorized the employing company
to seize the debtor, and hold him to the service until he paid the
fifteen dollars, or had furnished the equivalent in labor, its
invalidity would not be questioned. It would be equally clear that
the state could not authorize its constabulary to prevent the
servant from escaping, and to force him to work out his debt. But
the state could not avail itself of the sanction of the criminal
law to supply the compulsion any more than it could use or
authorize the use of physical force.
"In contemplation of the law, the compulsion to such service by
the fear of punishment under a criminal statute is more powerful
than any guard which the employer could station."
Ex parte Hollman, 79 S.C. 22.
What the state may not do directly it may not do indirectly. If
it cannot punish the servant as a criminal for the mere failure or
refusal to serve without paying his debt, it is not permitted to
accomplish the same result by creating a statutory presumption
which, upon proof of no other fact, exposes him to conviction and
punishment. Without imputing any actual motive to oppress, we must
consider the natural operation of the statute here in question
(
Henderson v. Mayor, 92 U.S. p.
92 U. S. 268),
and it is apparent that it furnishes a convenient instrument for
the coercion
Page 219 U. S. 245
which the Constitution and the act of Congress forbid -- an
instrument of compulsion peculiarly effective as against the poor
and the ignorant, its most likely victims. There is no more
important concern than to safeguard the freedom of labor upon which
alone can enduring prosperity be based. The provision designed to
secure it would soon become a barren form if it were possible to
establish a statutory presumption of this sort, and to hold over
the heads of laborers the threat of punishment for crime, under the
name of fraud, but merely upon evidence of failure to work out
their debts. The act of Congress deprives of effect all legislative
measures of any state through which, directly or indirectly, the
prohibited thing, to-wit, compulsory service to secure the payment
of a debt, may be established or maintained, and we conclude that §
4730, as amended, of the Code of Alabama, in so far as it makes the
refusal or failure to perform the act or service, without refunding
the money or paying for the property
prima facie, evidence
of the commission received of the crime which the section defines
is in conflict with the Thirteenth Amendment, and the legislation
authorized by that Amendment, and is therefore invalid.
In this view, it is unnecessary to consider the contentions
which have been made under the Fourteenth Amendment. As the case
was given to the jury under instructions which authorized a verdict
in accordance with the statutory presumption, and the opposing
instructions requested by the accused were refused, the judgment
must be reversed.
Reversed and cause remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES, dissenting:
We all agree that this case is to be considered and decided in
the same way as if it arose in Idaho or New York.
Page 219 U. S. 246
Neither public document nor evidence discloses a law which, by
its administration, is made something different from what it
appears on its face, and therefore the fact that, in Alabama, it
mainly concerns the blacks does not matter.
Yick Wo v.
Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356,
does not apply. I shall begin, then, by assuming for the moment
what I think is not true, and shall try to show not to be true,
that this statute punishes the mere refusal to labor according to
contract as a crime, and shall inquire whether there would be
anything contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment or the statute if it
did, supposing it to have been enacted in the State of New York. I
cannot believe it. The Thirteenth Amendment does not outlaw
contracts for labor. That would be at least as great a misfortune
for the laborer as for the man that employed him. For it certainly
would affect the terms of the bargain unfavorably for the laboring
man if it were understood that the employer could do nothing in
case the laborer saw fit to break his word. But any legal liability
for breach of a contract is a disagreeable consequence which tends
to make the contractor do as he said he would. Liability to an
action for damages has that tendency as well a fine. If the mere
imposition of such consequences as tend to make a man keep to his
promise is the creation of peonage when the contract happens to be
for labor, I do not see why the allowance of a civil action is not,
as well as an indictment ending in fine. Peonage is service to a
private master at which a man is kept by bodily compulsion against
his will. But the creation of the ordinary legal motives for right
conduct does not produce it. Breach of a legal contract without
excuse is wrong conduct, even if the contract is for labor, and if
a state adds to civil liability a criminal liability to fine, it
simply intensifies the legal motive for doing right; it does not
make the laborer a slave.
But if a fine may be imposed, imprisonment may be
Page 219 U. S. 247
imposed in case of a failure to pay it. Nor does it matter if
labor is added to the imprisonment. Imprisonment with hard labor is
not stricken from the statute books. On the contrary, involuntary
servitude as a punishment for crime is excepted from the
prohibition of the Thirteenth Amendment in so many words. Also, the
power of the states to make breach of contract a crime is not done
away with by the abolition of slavery. But if breach of contract
may be made a crime at all, it may be made a crime with all the
consequences usually attached to crime. There is produced a sort of
illusion if a contract to labor ends in compulsory labor in a
prison. But compulsory work for no private master in a jail is not
peonage. If work in a jail is not condemned in itself, without
regard to what the conduct is it punishes, it may be made a
consequence of any conduct that the state has power to punish at
all. I do not blink the fact that the liability to imprisonment may
work as a motive when a fine without it would not, and that it may
induce the laborer to keep on when he would like to leave. But it
does not strike me as an objection to a law that it is effective.
If the contract is one that ought not to be made, prohibit it. But
if it is a perfectly fair and proper contract, I can see no reason
why the state should not throw its weight on the side of
performance. There is no relation between its doing so in the
manner supposed and allowing a private master to use private force
upon a laborer who wishes to leave.
But all that I have said so far goes beyond the needs of the
case as I understand it. I think it a mistake to say that this
statute attaches its punishment to the mere breach of a contract to
labor. It does not purport to do so; what it purports to punish is
fraudulently obtaining money by a false pretense of an intent to
keep the written contract in consideration of which the money is
advanced. (It is not necessary to cite cases to show that such an
intent
Page 219 U. S. 248
may be the subject of a material false representation.) But the
import of the statute is supposed to be changed by the provision
that a refusal to perform, coupled with a failure to return the
money advanced, shall be
prima facie evidence of
fraudulent intent. I agree that if the statute created a conclusive
presumption, it might be held to make a disguised change in the
substantive law.
Keller v. United States, 213 U.
S. 138,
213 U. S. 150.
But it only makes the conduct
prima facie evidence -- a
very different matter. Is it not evidence that a man had a
fraudulent intent if he receives an advance upon a contract over
night and leaves in the morning? I should have thought that it very
plainly was. Of course, the statute is in general terms, and
applies to a departure at any time without excuse or repayment, but
that does no harm except on a tacit assumption that this law is not
administered as it would be in New York, and that juries will act
with prejudice against the laboring man. For
prima facie
evidence is only evidence, and as such may be held by the jury
insufficient to make out guilt. 161 Ala. 78. This was decided by
the Supreme Court of Alabama in this case, and we should be bound
by their construction of the statute even if we thought it wrong.
But I venture to add that I think it entirely right.
State v.
Intoxicating Liquors, 80 Me. 57. This being so, I take it that
a fair jury would acquit, if the only evidence were a departure
after eleven months' work, and if it received no color from some
special well known course of events. But the matter well may be
left to a jury, because their experience as men of the world may
teach them that, in certain conditions, it is so common for
laborers to remain during a part of the season, receiving advances,
and then to depart at the period of need, in the hope of greater
wages at a neighboring plantation, that, when a laborer follows
that course, there is a fair inference of fact that he intended it
from the beginning. The Alabama statute,
Page 219 U. S. 249
as construed by the state court and as we must take it, merely
says, as a court might say, that the prosecution may go to the
jury. This means, and means only, that the court cannot say, from
its knowledge of the ordinary course of events, that the jury could
not be justified by its knowledge in drawing the inference from the
facts proved. In my opinion, the statute embodies little if
anything more than what I should have told the jury was the law
without it. The right of the state to regulate laws of evidence is
admitted, and the statute does not go much beyond the common law.
Commonwealth v. Rubin, 165 Mass. 453.
I do not see how the result that I have reached thus far is
affected by the rule laid down by the Court, but not contained in
the statute, that the prisoner cannot testify to his uncommunicated
intentions, and therefore, it is assumed, would not be permitted to
offer a naked denial of an intent to defraud. If there is an excuse
for breaking the contract, it will be found in external
circumstances, and can be proved. So the sum of the wrong supposed
to be inflicted is that the intent to go off without repaying may
be put further back than it would be otherwise. But if there is a
wrong it lies in leaving the evidence to the jury -- a wrong that
is not affected by the letting in or keeping out an item of
evidence on the other side. I have stated why I think it was not a
wrong.
To sum up, I think that obtaining money by fraud may be made a
crime as well as murder or theft; that a false representation,
expressed or implied, at the time of making a contract of labor,
that one intends to perform it, and thereby obtaining an advance,
may be declared a case of fraudulently obtaining money as well as
any other; that, if made a crime, it may be punished like any other
crime; and that an unjustified departure from the promised service
without repayment may be declared a sufficient case to go to the
jury for their judgment -- all without in any
Page 219 U. S. 250
way infringing the Thirteenth Amendment or the statutes of the
United States.
Mr. JUSTICE LURTON concurs in this dissent.