e-holding states of the South a series of
laws which abrogate all this well-known and time-honored common law
principle.

Does peonage exist in any part of the United States to-day? The question
is answered both in the affirmative and in the negative. Those who deny
the existence of peonage assert that merely the voluntary or involuntary
service or labor of a person in payment of a debt or obligation is not
peonage; that it is not the system of peonage as practiced in
Spanish-American countries and in Mexico; that there is in this country
nothing resembling the Spanish or Mexican peonage system. It is probably
true that there are no laws on statute books which resemble the laws under
which peonage is practiced in Mexico, and under which it was practiced in
New Mexico and Arizona before they became parts of the United States. The
thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbids such
laws, and certain acts of Congress have been passed which render that
amendment effective. It is therefore to be presumed that no State which
desired to establish a system of forced labor would pass a law which, on
its face, would be in violation of the thirteenth amendment, or of the
laws of Congress passed in pursuance of it. The counterfeiter has before
him the task of making false money to look as much like genuine money as
possible. The maker of laws violative of fundamental rights has before him
the task of doing the forbidden thing in a way which will as nearly as
possible conceal the fact that it has been done. What peonage is, has been
defined by the United States Supreme Court.

Justice Brewer said: "It may be defined as a status or condition of
compulsory service based upon the indebtedness of the peon to the master.
The basal fact is indebtedness. One fact exists universally, all were
indebted to their masters. This was the cord by which they seemed bound to
their masters' service." Therefore, wherever we have compulsory service
for debt, we have peonage, it matters not by what method the result is
attained. There are to-day in certainly six states, and probably in ten,
in which the institution of slavery formerly existed, laws which make it
possible to compel men to render service against their will, and that too
when they have committed no act which, outside of those States would be
held to be a crime in any English-speaking community.

For convenience, these laws may be classed under at least five heads: