sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor in the first
place. Fulfillment of such a contract with the surety was viewed as
being virtually coerced by the constant fear it induced of rearrest, a
new prosecution, and a new fine for breach of contract, which new
penalty the convicted person might undertake to liquidate in a similar
manner attended by similar consequences. More recently, Bailey _v._
Alabama has been followed in Taylor _v._ Georgia[11] and Pollock _v._
Williams,[12] in which statutes of Georgia and Florida not materially
different from that voided in the Bailey Case, were found to be
unconstitutional. Although the Georgia statute prohibited the defendant
from testifying under oath, it did not prevent him from entering an
unsworn denial both of the contract and of the receipt of any cash
advancement thereunder, a factor which, the Court emphasized, was no
more controlling than the customary rule of evidence in the Bailey Case.
In the Florida Case, notwithstanding the fact that the defendant pleaded
guilty and accordingly obviated the necessity of applying the _prima
facie_ presumption provision, the Court reached an identical result,
chiefly on the ground that the presumption provision, despite its
nonapplication, "had a coercive effect in producing the plea of guilty."

Discriminations and Legal Compulsions Less Than Servitude

A contention of "involuntary servitude" was rejected in the following
cases:

(1) Racial discrimination. Denial of admission to public places, such as
inns, restaurants, or theaters, or the segregation of races in public
conveyances, etc., was held not to give rise to a "condition of enforced
compulsory service of one to another," and effected no deprivation of
one's legal right to dispose of his person, property, and services. Even
prior to the amendment, such discriminations had never been "regarded
as badges of slavery"; and it was not "the intent of the amendment to
denounce every act which was wrong if done to a free man and yet
justified in a condition of slavery."[13] Likewise, individuals who
conspired to prevent citizens of African descent, because of their race
or color, from making or carrying out contracts of labor, and so from
pursuing a common calling, were not deemed to have reduced negroes to a
condition of involuntary servitude; and hence a federal statute which
penalized such a conspiracy was declared to be in excess of the
enforcement powers vested in Congress by