R.D.

if it is not rendered and the money is not refunded that fact alone is sufficient for conviction. . .

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. . .

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. . . .

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 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 practised 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. p. 69. . . .

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.

The act of March 2, 1867 (Rev. Stat., §§ 1990, 5526, supra), 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 indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise," should be null and void. . . .

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. 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 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 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 (S. Car.), 60 S. E. Rep. 24.

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. 268), and it is apparent that it furnishes a convenient instrument for the coercion 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 provisions 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 received, prima facie evidence of the commission 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.1

HOLMES, J., with whom concurred LURTON, J., dissenting. . . .

1 See United States v. Reynolds, 235 U. S. 133 (1914). — Ed.

CHAPTER II.

THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT AND KINDRED TOPICS:
CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES; THEIR PRIVILEGES
OR IMMUNITIES; AND DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND
EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAWS.

SECTION I.

Citizens of the United States and Some of their Privileges or
Immunities.

GASSIES v. BALLON.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1832.

[6 Peters, 761.]

ERROR to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

This case came before the district court of the eastern district of Louisiana, on a petition filed in November, 1829, by Jean Gassies Ballon, for the recovery of the proceeds of certain goods, left in the hands of his son, Pierre Gassies for sale, and for a balance of an account arising out of the sale of the said goods, and other transactions between them.

The petitioner described himself in the petition as a resident of the city of Barsac, and a French citizen of the kingdom of France, and now in the parish of Baton Rouge, intending to return to France as soon as the settlement of his affairs would permit.

The defendant, Pierre Gassies his son, was described "as now residing in the parish of West Baton Rouge, where the said Pierre Gassies caused himself to be naturalized an American citizen."

The defendant appeared to the suit, and after a plea of no cause of action, which was overruled by the court, the cause was tried by a jury, and in February, 1830, a verdict was rendered for the petitioner for three thousand one hundred dollars, for which sum the district court entered judgment in his favor.

The defendant prosecuted this writ of error.

The case was argued by Mr. Taney for the plaintiff in error; and by Mr. Key for the defendant.

For the plaintiff it was contended, that there was not a sufficient averment in the pleadings, that Pierre Gassies was a citizen of Louisiana, so as to sustain the jurisdiction of the district court of the United States.

MARSHALL, C. J., delivered the opinion of the court.

In this case the court is of opinion that the jurisdiction can be sustained. The plaintiff in error is alleged in the proceedings to be a citizen of the United States, naturalized in Louisiana, and residing there. This is equivalent to an averment that he is a citizen of that state. A citizen of the United States, residing in any state of the union, is a citizen of that state. .

Judgment affirmed.

SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1873.

[16 Wallace, 36.]1

ERROR to the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

In 1869 the legislature of Louisiana passed an act entitled: "An act to protect the health of the City of New Orleans, to locate the stock landings and slaughter-houses, and to incorporate The Crescent City Live-Stock Landing and Slaughter-House Company.' The act gave to the company for twenty-five years the exclusive privilege of carrying on the live-stock landing and slaughter-house business in New Orleans and of having slaughtered in its slaughter-house all animals whose meat was destined for sale in the city, and enacted that all other stock landings and slaughterhouses be closed, under a penalty, and required the company, at rates fixed in the act, to permit owners to land stock at its wharves and to permit butchers to slaughter their stock in its slaughter-house; but as other individuals and companies continued to maintain other landings and slaughter-houses, the company created by the statute filed against them respectively petitions in several District Courts of the State, praying injunctions. The injunctions were made perpetual; and on appeal to the Supreme Court of Louisiana the company's contention was upheld. There

1 A new statement has been supplied, with the aid of the earlier stage of the case as reported in 10 Wall. 273 (1870). — Ed.