In the United States, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime." This creates a unique category of "legal" involuntary servitude. However, this system often faces scrutiny for illegal practices within it:
In the end, the most profound illegal aspect of legal slavery is this: The codes were a mask for lawlessness. To study these illegalities is to understand that when a legal system contradicts the first principles of justice, the illegal acts—escape, rebellion, rescue—become the only truly lawful ones. illegal aspects of legal slavery
Starting in the 1830s, all Southern states passed laws making it a crime to teach an enslaved person to read or write. The justification was preventing rebellion. But this law created a profound illegality: it criminalized the transmission of religious knowledge (since enslaved Christians were expected to hear the Bible, but not read it). It also made every literate enslaved person a living piece of contraband—their literacy itself was evidence of a past crime committed by someone else. Their very existence as a literate person was an "illegal aspect" of the system. In the United States, the 13th Amendment abolished
Modern slavery often operates within legal industries, such as agriculture, domestic work, and manufacturing, through "slavery-like practices". Starting in the 1830s, all Southern states passed