According to Constitutional Amendment XV, voting rights cannot be abridged or denied by any state or by the United States on account of “previous condition of servitude.” The question, then is just what is the meaning of the word, servitude?

Some say ‘servitude’ meant and means slavery. Some say that it means subservience or that it is, specifically, the hard labor a prisoner must do to work out his sentence.  Lo, a precise definition is at hand, from within the Alpha and the Omega of the Constitution itself.