United States v. Stanley
109 U.S. 3 Supreme Court 1883 is … far asits terms are … upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States. It istrue that slavery cannot exist without law, … therefore, the Thirteenth Amendment may be regarded asifying … the power vested in Congress to enforce the article by appropriate legislation clothes Congress with power to pass all laws necessary and proper forabolishing … incidents ofslavery … the argument being that the denial of such equal accommodations and privileges is, in itself, a subjection to a species of servitude within the meaning of the amendment..Congresshas … and privileges of an inn, a public conveyance, or a theatre does subject that person to any form of servitude, or tend to fasten upon him any badge of slavery? If it doesnot, then … laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, made in a former case, a long list of burdens and disabilities of a servile character, incident to feudal vassalage in France, and which wereabolished … Assembly, was presented forthe … of showing that allinequalities and … man from another were servitudes orbadges of slavery which … made haste to wipe out and destroy. But thesewere s…s imposed by … the oldlaw, or by … longcustom, … the force of law,and … any such servitudes be imposed by a state law, there can beno doubt … the denial be founded on the race or color of that individual? Where does any slavery or servitude, or badge of either, arise from such an act of denial?...But what has it to do with the question of slavery? It may be that, by the Black Code (as it was called), in the times when slaveryprevailed, … escapes, and was no part of the servitude itself. A law of that kind could not have any such object now, however justly it might be deemed an invasion of the party's legal
