"The convict lease system is a system of slavery more ruinous to the victim and more degrading to the state than the system of chattel slavery which it succeeded."
— T. Thomas Fortune, *Black and White: Land, Labor, and Politics in the South*, 1884
Which of the following constitutional provisions created the legal loophole that allowed southern states to establish the system criticized by Fortune in the excerpt?
- The Thirteenth Amendment's clause permitting involuntary servitude as a punishment for a convicted crimeCevap
- BThe Fourteenth Amendment's clause reducing representation for states restricting male suffrage
- CThe Fifteenth Amendment's omission of explicit prohibitions on literacy tests and poll taxes
- DThe Thirteenth Amendment's complete prohibition of forced labor, which southern states bypassed through sharecropping contracts
Cevap
The Thirteenth Amendment's clause permitting involuntary servitude as a punishment for a convicted crime
The correct option correctly identifies the exception clause of the Thirteenth Amendment as the legal loophole that allowed southern states to establish the convict lease system. By framing forced labor as a punishment for crimes, southern legislatures passed discriminatory laws (Black Codes) to arrest and convict Black Americans, subsequently leasing their labor to private parties.
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Anahtar Kavram
The loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment and its role in the rise of the convict lease system.