Peonage Cases

• Decision Date: 16 June 1903
• Citation: 123 F. 671
• Parties: PEONAGE CASES.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama

123 F. 671

PEONAGE CASES.

United States District Court, M.D. Alabama.

June 16, 1903

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

JONES District Judge.

Pressure of other official duties has prevented earlier response to your requests for the advice and opinion of the court. The importance of the questions raised induces written answer at length. For some time you have been inquiring as to alleged violations of the statutes against peonage and involuntary servitude. Breaches of these laws involve the peace, good order, and honor alike of the state and of the United States. They are matters of gravest concern to every citizen. While it is a source of much regret that these laws have been violated in two localities, involving about a score of offenders, yet it must nevertheless be a pleasing reflection that the abhorrence of our people for such offenses, and the sustaining power of a just public opinion in this state, will lighten your labors in the effort to probe this evil to the core.

What Peonage Is.

What is meant by the phrase, holding or returning a person to 'a condition of peonage,' as used in the Revised Statutes? At the time of the passage of the act of Congress to which your attention will presently be called, a system of service popularly called 'peonage' existed in New Mexico though not so termed in the laws of the territory, which spoke of the relation as that of master and servant. It derived the institution form Mexico, which, in turn inherited it from Spain. Peonage was not slavery, as it formerly existed in this country. The peon was not a slave. He was a freeman, with political as well as civil rights. He entered into the relation from choice, for a definite period, as the result of mutual contract. The relation was not confined to any race. The child of a peon did not become a peon, and the father could not contract away the services of his minor child, except in rare cases. The peon, male or female, agreed with the master upon the nature of the service, the length of its duration and compensation. The peon then became bound to the master 'for an indebtedness founded upon an advancement in consideration of service. ' In the earlier stages of the institution there, the person agreeing to perform service could put an end to the relation by paying whatever he owed to the employer, at any time. If the peon wished to change masters or service, he could find a new employer who would advance enough to pay the peon's debts to his then master, and the peon would then become bound in the new employer's service. So also the master could sell the services of the peon, for the term, to any one who would pay his debts and assume the duties and obligations of the master. Under later laws, the party could not abandon the contract, except by mutual consent or 'by some sufficient motive given by one party to another, such as having grievously injured him, or where the master kept the accounts in an ambiguous manner, so that the servant could not understand them. ' In these cases the contract could be rescinded by paying the amount due by one party to the other. If no such motive 'should be proven, the contract must be complied with, and the judge or court would order it carried into effect by imposing upon the party failing to comply with the contract, and who shall persevere in doing so, that he should indemnify the other party for the injury resulting therefrom; and all resistance was punished by a fine or imprisonment, as the gravity of the circumstances and resistance may require. ' If the servant refused to comply, and owed any money to the master, and he refused and could not pay it, the court would compel him to pay the principal and interest to the other, and might order the sheriff to contract the services of the peon to the highest bidder. The same proceedings could be had against the master if he failed to pay what he owed. 'It seems clear,' as declared by the highest court of the territory, in reviewing the legislation on the subject, 'that the legislators were determined that by no means should either of the parties escape the consequences of their own voluntary agreement. ' The agreement once made, the employe, or person for whom an advance was made, except in the cases stated, became irrevocably bound to service.

The powers of justice of the peace, who succeeded to most of the jurisdiction of the alcaldes in the administration of the law, were not clearly defined, and left very much to their discretion as to the return of persons to service, and the mode and quantum of judicial power which could be exercised to compel the service. There was often 'unscrupulous disregard' as to 'the legal rights of the unfortunate, the peon, and the feeble, when contesting with the wealthy and influential. ' The improvidence and the needs of laborers and servants, the greed of employers, and the exercise, often corrupt, of almost irresponsible power of local magistrates, resulted in citizens becoming bound, in constantly increasing numbers and length of service, to compulsory 'service or labor' to coerce payment of debt or compel the performance of real or pretended obligations of personal service. The evils of the system not only degraded those who were subjected to the system, but exercised a baleful influence upon all other classes, which in innumerable ways fought against the industrial prosperity and moral advancement of the people among whom the 'system' was enforced. It was also wholly out of keeping with the spirit of the amendment to the Constitution, which forbids involuntary servitude, except upon due conviction of crime.

The courts of the territory, after the passage of the thirteenth amendment, holding that it destroyed the right formerly existing under the territorial laws to hold to service, released peons from compulsory service on writs of habeas corpus, wherever applied to, but made little headway against the evil. Peons had become so degraded that in many instances they voluntarily returned to the compulsory service, being content to give control over their persons and freedom to masters who, in return, would feed and clothe them and their families. Masters, in many instances, resented the new order of things, 'which deprived them of proper control of their labor,' and exercised their old authority in spite of the new amendment, which was not then enforceable by criminal penalty. Officers of the army, particularly in the case of Indians, used the forces of the United States to hold or return them to the system of compulsory labor or service, in discharge of their contracts, debts, or obligations.

Congress, therefore, determined not only to destroy the system as it existed in New Mexico, but to prevent in the future in that territory, or 'in any other territory or state' of the Union, the reappearance or re-establishment of the evil conditions which the system created. Accordingly, by the act approved on the 2d day of March, 1867, now embraced in sections 1990 and 5526 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, pp. 1266, 3715), it was enacted:

'Sec. 1990. The holding of any person to service or labor under the system known as peonage is abolished and forever prohibited in the territory of New Mexico, or in any other territory or state of the United States; and all acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of the territory of New Mexico, or in any other territory or state, which have heretofore established, maintained, or enforced, or by virtue of which any attempt shall hereafter be made to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or indirectly the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons or peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are declared null and void.'

'Sec. 5526. Every person who holds, arrests, returns, or causes to be held, arrested or returned, or in any manner aids in the arrest, or return of any person to a condition of peonage, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one thousand nor more than five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment not less than one year nor more than five years, or both.'

The meaning of the terms in this statute must be sought in the light of this history of the institution in New Mexico, and the design of Congress interpreted in the light of the evil 'condition' that system developed, which the statute declared should not thereafter exist in any state or territory.

Holding to the Condition of Peonage, Howsoever Accomplished, Prohibited and Punished.

The right, privilege, or immunity of a citizen of the United States to be free from slavery or involuntary servitude of any kind, except upon due conviction of crime, being given or secured by the Constitution of the United States to every citizen of the United States, Congress, under the authority vested in it by the thirteenth amendment, had power not only to strike down and annul laws which supported the system of peonage in New Mexico, but, by direct and primary legislation of its own, to punish criminally individuals who, in any part of the United States, violate the rights of citizens of the United States in this regard, by lawlessly subjecting them to the results and evils, 'the condition,' of the forbidden system. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539, 10 L.Ed. 1060. Congress, by the act cited, not only annulled all legislation attempting to uphold peonage as a legalized institution, but went further and provided for the punishment of every person instrumental in holding, arresting, or returning 'of any person' to a 'condition of peonage.' The language of this second section is plain, emphatic, without ambiguity, and makes no exception whatever. 'Every person' who holds 'any person' to 'a condition of peonage' is declared an offender...