Before the 13th Amendment, could people sell themselves into slavery in the USA? Classical (non-racial) systems of slavery in Western civilization, such as Greco-Roman, Celtic, etc. typically included provisions for selling oneself into slavery. This might be as a way to escape crushing debt, or done as a matter of honor to serve a benefactor. These methods existed in addition to other ways that one might become a slave, such as being taken as a Prisoner Of War or being convicted of certain criminal offenses. Did this principle apply, at least in theory, to slavery as practiced in the USA before the Thirteenth Amendment? I recognize that there were debt-based servitude arrangements not amounting to total, lifetime enslavement (e.g. Indentured Servitude) that were used primarily by white immigrants, but was legally enslaving a free, willing US resident or immigrant legally impossible by any means or was this simply something that was not done for social or practical reasons? If "The United States" is too broad for such an analysis, we can limit ourselves to the state of Virginia, which had some of the earliest legislation surrounding the "peculiar institution". For the purposes of this question, colonial-era law (pre-independence) may count. This question has nothing to do with unlawful human trafficking, nor does it have anything to do with BDSM-culture "slave contracts" and similar phenomena.
In British colonies and their successors It is hard to prove a negative, but in the British colonies and their successors, I believe that the answer was probably no. Indentured servitude came close to the concept of selling oneself into slavery, although for a fixed term of years. The 13th Amendment recognizes the possibility that slavery or involuntary servitude could be a punishment for a criminal offense, although I've heard of only a few instances in which permanent slavery was actually a punishment for a criminal offense (see, e.g., one case from 1659 in what is now New Mexico but then was part of Old Mexico, mentioned below). On the other hand, the equivalent of indentured servitude, which was sometimes called slavery, was imposed with some regularity, most often for offenders with African descent, prior to the adoption of the 13th Amendment and into the post-Civil War era, was more often a punishment. And indentured servitude remained a not uncommon punishment and continues to be used, for example, with sentences of hard labor being common in military justice, mandatory prison labor (especially "chain gangs"), and sentences of useful community service being common in civilian criminal courts, all constituting indentured servitude to some extent. Both voluntary military service and military conscription are also forms of indentured servitude in economic substance and in their legal effect, but these forms of commitments to involuntary military service are not treated as indentured servitude for purposes of the 13th Amendment. N.B. In this answer I use the term indentured servitude to refer to involuntary service and labor for a fixed period of time, rather than for life, whether this entered into as a voluntary contract or as an involuntary punishment. But, historically, people who I define as indentured servants for the purposes of this answer (especially if this service was imposed as punishment for a crime and the individuals so sentenced were of African or Native American descent(, were often referred to as slaves. The term indentured servant was sometimes limited to voluntarily entered into arrangements, with the term slavery sometimes used for both short term and permanent involuntary labor not entered into voluntarily (in a manner similar to the use of the term mortgage to specify a voluntary security interest in property and the term lien to specify an involuntarily created security interest in property, although this semantic convention is also inconsistent). But, the historical usage is not very consistent anyway, and I understand the word slavery as it is used in the question to be limited to permanent involuntary servitude, rather than temporary involuntary servitude, so I use only a restricted sense of the word slavery in this answer, consistent with the way the word is used in the question. I've also never heard of even a single instance of someone selling themselves into slavery in the U.S., despite being a fairly avid history buff who minored in history in college. Another piece of circumstantial evidence that argues against the existence of a mechanism for selling yourself into slavery is the fact that the U.S. Constitution, all the way back in 1789, already provided for, as a basic function of government, for bankruptcy, and the institution of bankruptcy was one with British law antecedents going back to 1705 (which has a quasi-criminal character but mostly the same effect) that existed in the American colonies as well. Likewise, the U.S. Constitution also prohibited punishments involving a "corruption of blood" which held descendants responsible for the acts of their ancestors even if those acts amounted to treason. U.S. Constitution, Art. III, Sec. 3, ¶ 2. Self-enslavement for "honor" is very akin to a feudal oath of fealty, which was strongly rejected as part of the Independence movement of the United States including language in the 1789 U.S. Constitution, and it was also an institution that never had much currency in the Americas because many of the early colonies were of a corporate or religious nature, rather than an aristocratic one, unlike many early Spanish colonies. These historical circumstances eliminated the main circumstances motivating historical examples of an institution of submitting oneself to slavery. Another historical fact that strongly argues against there being an institution of selling oneself in slavery was the strongly racialized nature of slavery in British colonies and their successors. Indentured servitude was for white people, slavery was for black people, and there really wasn't much of a cultural or conceptual need for mix up these two models. Doing so would have undermined a cultural axiom of racial supremacy which was important to sustaining slavery as an institution in the United States. This may also be a reason that there was not a strong institution of enslaving either European descent or Native American prisoners of war in North America, even though some Native Americans were enslaved on a more ad hoc basis by people of European descent. If I recall correctly, early attempts to enslave Native Americans were also not very successful as an economic proposition for the would be slavers, for whatever reasons, further racializing slavery as an institution in North America largely limited to people of African descent. The discussion at the link above illustrates the parameters of the situation: When Europeans arrived as colonists in North America, Native Americans changed their practice of slavery dramatically. Native Americans began selling war captives to Europeans rather than integrating them into their own societies as they had done before. As the demand for labor in the West Indies grew with the cultivation of sugar cane, Europeans enslaved Native Americans for the Thirteen Colonies, and some were exported to the "sugar islands." The British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, purchased or captured Native Americans to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo. Accurate records of the numbers enslaved do not exist. Scholars estimate tens of thousands of Native Americans may have been enslaved by the Europeans, being sold by Native Americans themselves or European men. Slaves became a caste of people who were foreign to the English (Native Americans, Africans and their descendants) and non-Christians. The Virginia General Assembly defined some terms of slavery in 1705: All servants imported and brought into the Country ... who were not Christians in their native Country ... shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion ... shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resists his master ... correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction ... the master shall be free of all punishment ... as if such accident never happened. — Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705. The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1730. It gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the Yamasee War. The Indian Wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the Native American slave trade by 1750. Colonists found that Native American slaves could easily escape, as they knew the country. The wars cost the lives of numerous colonial slave traders and disrupted their early societies. The remaining Native American groups banded together to face the Europeans from a position of strength. Many surviving Native American peoples of the southeast strengthened their loose coalitions of language groups and joined confederacies such as the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Catawba for protection. Native American women were at risk for rape whether they were enslaved or not; during the early colonial years, settlers were disproportionately male. They turned to Native women for sexual relationships. Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men. The exact number of Native Americans who were enslaved is unknown because vital statistics and census reports were at best infrequent. Andrés Reséndez estimates that between 147,000 and 340,000 Native Americans were enslaved in North America, excluding Mexico. Linford Fisher's estimates 2.5 million to 5.5 million Natives enslaved in the entire Americas. Even though records became more reliable in the later colonial period, Native American slaves received little to no mention, or they were classed with African slaves with no distinction. For example, in the case of "Sarah Chauqum of Rhode Island", her master listed her as mulatto in the bill of sale to Edward Robinson, but she won her freedom by asserting her Narragansett identity. Little is known about Native Americans that were forced into labor. Two myths have complicated the history of Native American slavery: that Native Americans were undesirable as servants, and that Native Americans were exterminated or pushed out after King Philip's War. The precise legal status for some Native Americans is at times difficult to establish, as involuntary servitude and slavery were poorly defined in 17th-century British America. Some masters asserted ownership over the children of Native American servants, seeking to turn them into slaves. The historical uniqueness of slavery in America is that European settlers drew a rigid line between insiders, "people like themselves who could never be enslaved", and nonwhite outsiders, "mostly Africans and Native Americans who could be enslaved". A unique feature between natives and colonists was that colonists gradually asserted sovereignty over the native inhabitants during the seventeenth century, ironically transforming them into subjects with collective rights and privileges that Africans could not enjoy. The West Indies developed as plantation societies prior to the Chesapeake Bay region and had a demand for labor. In the Spanish colonies, the church assigned Spanish surnames to Native Americans and recorded them as servants rather than slaves. Many members of Native American tribes in the Western United States were taken for life as slaves. In some cases, courts served as conduits for enslavement of Indians, as evidenced by the enslavement of the Hopi man Juan Suñi in 1659 by a court in Santa Fe for theft of food and trinkets from the governor's mansion. In the East, Native Americans were recorded as slaves. The colonial legislation from Virginia from 1705 quoted above, in particular, argues that Europeans could not generally be enslaved in Virginia, although the distinction was formally religious rather than racial. But, the religious aspect also had a caveat omitted in the quote from the 1705 CE legislation from Virginia above that muddy the waters of religious v. racial or national origin discrimination: all servants imported and brought into the Country... who were not christians in their native country, (except... Turks and Moors in amity with her majesty, and others that can make due proof of their being free in England, or any other christian country, before they were shipped...) shall be accounted and be slaves, and such be here bought and sold notwithstanding a conversion to christianity afterward. Thus, Jews and Muslims and deists (true atheism as opposed to deism from very rare in the Enlightenment era and only became common after Darwin) who were were free "in England, or in any other christian country, before they were shipped" were still not considered slaves in Virginia in 1705 CE. And for that purpose free simply meant, not a slave. Thus, Jews from England were considered free in England, even though they did not have full citizenship rights and were subject to de jure discrimination there from 1655 CE when they first returned to England after Jews were expelled from England in 1290 CE (in connection with the religious movements associated with the Crusades), through at least 1829 CE. Most people in Africa during the colonial era in North America, who were Christians, were Ethiopians or Egyptians, neither of whom were a major source of New World slaves. Also not unrelated is the fact that early attempts to use indentured servants and hired farm hands of European descent in the American Southeast were not very successful because the mortality and disease rates of these servants, especially due to mosquito born diseases to which they had little natural immunity, was so significantly greater than that of African descent slaves who had some natural immunity to these diseases, making white slavery an economically unattractive institution to establish. Periodic rounds of "moral panic" related to the nebulous and often not very well grounded fear of white slavery that has recurred throughout U.S. history at regular intervals also argues for the racialized nature of the institution in the U.S. and its predecessor British colonies. In sum, there is very good reason to believe that it was never possible to sell oneself into slavery in the United States or in the British colonies that preceded it, even though it is hard to prove that point definitively. was legally enslaving a free, willing US resident or immigrant legally impossible by any means or was this simply something that was not done for social or practical reasons? I do not believe that this was expressly provided for by statute, but most law at the time was common law rooted in British case law anyway, which makes distinguishing between something that was "legally impossible" and something "that was not done for social or practical reasons" harder to distinguish in common law jurisdictions than in civil law jurisdictions based upon continental Europe. Colonies of Civil Law Countries I am less confident of the status of this possibility in the case of Dutch or Spanish or French colonies in North America. I know from historical accounts of French North America that slavery, while it existed, was much less racialized with a significant community of free people of color. And, all three of those countries had legal systems with their roots in Roman law that was "received" by these countries in the early modern era basically when political leaders as the Middle Ages started to fade away, started to use Roman legal treatises to justify their resolutions of disputes without formally adopting this as a positive source of law (the Netherlands is a bit more muddled as it was also a major participant in the home grown institution called the "law merchant" devised by merchants serving as arbitrators, especially in disputes between merchants, some of which ended up influencing British common law). Anyway, in these countries, Roman legal sources that recognized the concept of selling yourself into slavery would have been available and could have been considered good law. Also, because these countries, especially Spain and France, had much less of a vibrant commercial tradition in the early modern period, it is quite likely that the institution of bankruptcy that developed comparatively early in Britain came later there, potentially necessitating a way to settle debts that could not be discharged and which might otherwise burden descendants (many places in continental Europe had descendants liable for the debts of their ancestors into the early modern period). So, if it were ever possible to sell oneself into slavery at all in North American history, in what ultimately became the United States, it probably happened in French North America, former Spanish colonies, or in Dutch Manhattan, with the first two probably much more likely to have occurred than the last one. Even there, however, I cannot think of a single historical or literary account that recognizes even one example of such a transition in personal status. A short account of French slavery law also provides no precedent for anything remotely similar to this practice. This is particularly notable since the French apparently largely borrowed from Dutch and Spanish practice. In Pre-Colonial America The possibility of selling oneself into slavery did exist in the legal and cultural circumstances of some Native American tribes in North America, where the institution was less like the chattel slavery of the early English slave traders. As explained at the link above: Many Native American tribes practiced some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America. Native American groups often enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor. Others however would stake themselves in gambling situations when they had nothing else which would put them into servitude for a short time in some cases for life; captives were also sometimes tortured as part of religious rites, and these sometimes involved ritual cannibalism. During times of famine some Native Americans would also temporarily sell their children to obtain food... Several tribes held captives as hostages for payment. Various tribes also practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; full tribal status would be restored as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society. Obtaining prisoners was also a strong interest for Native American warriors as for the qualification of being considered brave this was especially an interest of male warriors in various tribes. Other slave-owning tribes of North America included Comanche of Texas, the Creek of Georgia; the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, who lived in Northern California; the Pawnee, and the Klamath. Self-enslavement seems to go hand in hand with slavery not having a strong racial component.
18 USC 960 states that Whoever, within the United States, knowingly begins or sets on foot or provides or prepares a means for or furnishes the money for, or takes part in, any military or naval expedition or enterprise to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominion of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. &quot;At peace&quot; is not defined, but we can assume that a nation that the US is at war with would be exempt from this provision, then again it depends on what it means to be &quot;at war&quot; with a nation.
Is it true that men are forced to pay child support for children they didn't consent to having? Yes. This is true in every U.S. jurisdiction, in the U.K., and in every jurisdiction of which I am aware in the E.U., and it is the rule in many other jurisdictions. The duty to pay child support in these jurisdictions flows from the relationship between the father and the child, and is not a contractual concept based upon consent. The primary exceptions to this general rule are cases where a parental relationship is legally terminated (e.g., in connection with the adoption of a child born out of wedlock), and cases in which someone becomes a sperm donor in a statutorily authorized arrangement that generally does not involve sexual intercourse. Historically, roughly speaking in the early 19th century, and earlier in English common law, and most other European and European-colonist jurisdictions, a man only had a duty to support the children of his wife or the children of his deceased former wife if he was a widower. Even further back, in the Roman empire from which the foundations of Roman civil law were derived, a father had a right in his sole and absolute discretion to commit infanticide, killing his infant children, a right which was a major political issue in the Roman empire from sometime in the 100s CE until it collapsed. Some jurisdictions, such as Japan, only established a legal duty to pay child support to a custodial parent in any circumstances in the late 20th century, although those jurisdictions still recognized the legal duty of a father to support a child in his custody. It is also worth noting that women in every country of which I am aware have a duty to support the children to which they give birth, whether or not they consented to impregnation (e.g. even if they were raped), or to giving birth (e.g. even if they wanted an abortion but were denied access to abortion by law or otherwise). This support obligation persists in almost every case, even if the woman's child is in the custody of another parent or guardian, and a woman is much more likely to face criminal prosecution for failure to support her child than an uninvolved father (although criminal prosecutions of men for non-support do happen). So, the claim that this constitutes sex discrimination is ill-founded.
There are venue restrictions where political speech is restricted, such as on military bases; content restrictions (transmitting classified information to the world); you cannot defraud by saying false things in order to get something, you cannot defame a person, you cannot speak obscenely (though it's hard to tell what counts as "obscenity"). You cannot appropriate other people's property in speaking (i.e. copyright law is a restriction on speech). The type of speech restrictions seem to pertain to speech and violence caused by such speech. A classic limitation is that you cannot speak "fighting words" (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 315 U.S. 568), which in 1942 meant calling someone a "damned racketeer" and "damned Fascist", which the court characterized as "inherently likely to provoke a violent reaction". The court subsequently refined its position on "provocative" speech. In Virginia v. Black 538 U.S. 343 a law against cross-burning was found to run afoul of the First Amendment as a restriction on political expression, but it would be fully consistent with The Constitution to outlaw "cross burning carried out with the intent to intimidate". This states may "prohibit only those forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm". The current position is that you cannot incite to the imminent use of force. In Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444, the court stated that the First Amendment does not "permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". There are myriad laws against threats, for instance in Washington you may not "knowingly threaten(s) to cause bodily injury immediately or in the future to the person threatened or to any other person", and you can't do that ("knowingly cause another to believe that the offender will cause serious physical harm to the person or property of the other person") in Ohio either. You can't get away with threatening "to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person" in California. This class of restrictions on speech seems to be quite robust. You may not induce panic in Ohio, e.g. shout "fire" in a theater -- I don't know if any other state has such a law.
18 USC 960 provides a disincentive against such actions. Whoever, within the United States, knowingly begins or sets on foot or provides or prepares a means for or furnishes the money for, or takes part in, any military or naval expedition or enterprise to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominion of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both Also see 18 USC 959, covering enlistment. &quot;At peace&quot; is not statutorily defined, so it is not obvious whether the US is &quot;at peace&quot; with Ethiopia (Tigray war) or Russia (various offenses). A formal state of war has not existed between the US and another nation for 70 years.
The granting of citizenship is expressly recognized in multiple places in the US Constitution. It would be incoherent if the prohibition on titles of nobility meant that the US could not confer citizenship on people. It would also be totally out of sync with any public understanding of &quot;titles of nobility&quot; at the time of the framing or today. The US has conferred citizenship by parentage to children born abroad since 1790, which is further indication that the nobility clause was not understood to preclude citizenship by parentage. The concern behind the nobility clauses was the creation of &quot;super-citizens.&quot; As Joseph Story wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution at Vol. 3, p. 215: [the nobility clause] seems scarcely to require even a passing notice. As a perfect equality is the basis of all our institutions, state and national, the prohibition against the creation of any titles of nobility seems proper, if not indespensible, to keep perpetually alive a just sense of this important truth. Distinctions between citizens, in regard to rank, would soon lay the foundation of odious claims and privileges, and silently subvert the spirit of independence and personal dignity, which are so often proclaimed to be the best security of a republican government. He cited Federalist No. 84, in which Alexander Hamilton wrote: Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner-stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded, there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people. The worry was that titles of nobility would undermine the republican system of government. I also question your premise that citizenship is &quot;clearly hereditary in the U.S.&quot; As you say, the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to those merely born in the US and subject to its jurisdiction. For the vast majority of U.S. citizens, citizenship is based on their place of birth being in the U.S. Knowing that somebody is a citizen tells you nothing about their heritage.
Involuntary servitude is illegal in Spain/Europe Has been for more than 100 years. Once an employee resigns their only obligation is to work the contracted (or statutory) notice period or pay the employer the equivalent salary.
Interesting question. I routinely write wills that authorize the executor to destroy property that has no significant economic or sentimental value, but I've never encountered a case where a testator or testatrix has directed that property be destroyed and I've never seen a reported case (or even a news report) in which that has happened. To the extent that an estate is solvent, there is no reason that a creditor could complain and if the destruction was done in a safe manner (as opposed to burning down a house or something like that without consulting the fire department) I'm not sure that there would be a public interest in doing so either. There are many religions that had a practice historically of burying someone with grave goods, so there are reasonable First Amendment freedom of religion arguments for allowing such a practice if it had a religious basis. And, if no interested party objected, I don't see how anyone could stop the executor from acting, unless the property to be destroyed was, for example, evidence of a crime, in which case it would be a crime to destroy it and the provision of the will would be void because it was a crime to carry it out. If an executor sought permission from a court to carry out this instruction, the court might require a public notice of the planned destruction to give notice to any third party who might claim an ownership interest in the property allegedly belonging to the decedent. On the other hand, usually, all interested parties in an estate can agree to act contrary to a will by unanimous consent, in which case no one would have standing to fight for the provision in court (unless it was considered a charitable bequest, in which case a state attorney general or an advocate appointed by the court with the "will" as the client could defend it). Given the strong public policies in the law disfavoring "waste" (i.e. useless destruction of property) such a provision could be held to be void as against public policy (similarly, bequests contingent upon marriage decisions are now void as against public policy).