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Maurice Magnus, before the 13th amendment, chattel slavery made people property and was inheritable, you were born into it -- this is a very different system from penal labor, no one is property and you are not born into penal labor. The 13th amendment abolished hereditary chattel slavery. The argument about involuntary servitude and penal labor does not belong here, it is confusing and does not fit into summary of this article, it is not and should not be in the body of this article either. Long after Abraham Lincoln died, many terrible systems continued (against poor people, working poor) and especially against black people, particularly black men, but that belongs elsewhere than the lead of this article -- still, getting rid of hereditary chattel slavery in his lifetime is and was significant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The part about "expected as punishment for a crime" clearly refers to involuntary servitude. But we have to be careful as this article is still at FAC. Perhaps we can open a RfC when the review is closed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, which is why the quoting (which Magnus now put in) is still not good enough. Our job is to summarize especially in the lead, not send the reader off onto something else, or load up with quotes. Of course, to summarize, we have to know what is being talked about, which is chattel slavery, basically throughout this article. I'll note for Magnus and others in response to his latest edit summary, "abolish" is not in the amendment either, so your point about 'chattel' is useless. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:45, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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