Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/398

 Rh teenth Article of Amendment to the Consti tution of the United States and the Act of Congress of 1867 concerning peonage: During the last year a large number of in dictments have been found by United States grand juries in the District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, at Montgomery, for holding persons in a condition of peon age or returning them to such a condition. One of these juries appears to have request ed special instructions on the subject and concerning the meaning of the Act of 1867, above quoted; and, in June last, Judge Thomas G. Jones of that District, delivered an elaborate charge which has been report ed. After alluding to the origin of peonage in Spain, and its transfer to Mexico, and thence to New Mexico, the Judge stated that peonage is not slavery and that a peon is not a slave, but a laborer bound to his master for an indebtedness founded on advancements made in consideration of service. He then showed how this system had been abused in New Mexico, and why the Act of March 2d, 1867, had been adopted. In construing the Act, he laid down the rule that such a statute, imposing as it does penalties for the invasion of the rights of the citizen in order to pro tect him in his liberty and happiness, is not the subject of disfavor in the law, and should not be construed with the same strictness, or on the same footing, as laws which regulate or restrain the exercise of a natural right or forbid the doing of things not intrinsically wrong. He declared that under the statute in question, which makes it an offence to hold a person in a condition of peonage, or return a person to such condition, it is im material, as regards such offence whether or not the condition of peonage exists by virtue of a local law or custom creating such a con dition, or whether it exists in violation or without the sanction of law. The "condition of peonage," the Judge held, is a condition of enforced servitude by which the servitor is restrained of his liberty and compelled to labor in liquidation of some debt or obliga tion, real or pretended, against his will; and any agreement giving another the right to exact such servitude is invalid in law, is treat

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ed as made involuntarily, and affords the creditor or master no protection; and in con sidering the effect of influence, threats or force in rendering service involuntarily and creating the "condition" in question, we may take into consideration in each case the rela tive inferiority of the person so contracting to perform the service when compared with the person exercising the force. The Judge further declared, in view of the variety of cases before him, that if a person hires an other under, or induces him to sign, a con tract, by which the latter agrees during the term to be imprisoned or kept under guard, and, under cover of such agreement, after wards holds the party to the performance thereof, by threats, punishment or undue in fluence, subduing his free will when he de sires to abandon such service, he is guilty of holding such person in a condition of peon age. He also charged that a person who falsely pretends to another that he is accused of crime and offers to prevent conviction if he will pay a sum of money to satisfy the prosecutor, and thus induces the party to sign a contract to work out the amount, and to submit to restraint and deprivation of lib erty while thus working out a debt, is guilty of holding such laborer in a condition of pe onage, or causing him to be so held, when ever such laborer desires to leave his em ployment, but is compelled by threats or pun ishment to remain and work under such con tract. Other charges were also given, of an interesting character, concerning local con ditions in Alabama, and as to false accusa tions of crime made for the purpose of plac ing laborers in a condition of involuntary servitude; and as to the unconstitutionality of certain laws in that State. As a result a large number of indictments were found, to some of which the defendants have pleaded guilty and have paid large fines. . . . To sum up briefly, it would seem that in the opinion of the three United States judges who have considered the act of 1867, the stat ute is constitutional and acts directly on the individual who holds another in a condition of peonage, or returns another to such con dition, and that no regular "system" of peon