Bailey v. Alabama - Involuntary Servitude

Although the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery it was not until United States v. Kozminski (1988) that slavery, in its derivative form , involuntary servitude, was formally outlawed. For roughly a 50 year period beginning with the Slaughterhouse Cases (1872), the courts failed to make a meaningful distinction between involuntary servitude and slavery; the practice of involuntary servitude therefore continued well into the twentieth century. In Bailey v. Alabama (1920) and subsequent cases the distinction was made that involuntary servitude applies to any situation where one man is coerced, or has no alternative but to work for another man's profit.

In United States v. Shackney (1964) for example a Mexican family was psychologically coerced (by the threat of deportation) to work on a chicken farm. This practice met the definition of involuntary servitude and was prohibited. The concept of holding an individual in involuntary servitude was broadened in United States v. Kozminski (1988) to include forcing labor upon the mentally incompetent.