this post was submitted on 10 May 2024
549 points (98.2% liked)
Political Memes
5430 readers
1394 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
In this context? Probably so that prisons pay for themselves. Or the loophole was intentional – it seems rather obvious that Southern states could pass arbitrary laws and enforce them willy-nilly, targeting minorities or whoever fell out of favor of the ruling class.
that's the overview answer, mabe better put, how did the justify this to the lawmakers?
In the 19th century, it was widely believed that people were criminals because of moral deficiency, and that hard labor would have a positive effect in reforming them into good, upstanding members of society.
This is not really connected to reality in any way, but fits with the popular protestant theology of the time.
I am not even a US citizen and I'm making guesses based on my limited knowledge of its history. You'll have to ask someone else.