diff --git a/django/forms/fields.py b/django/forms/fields.py
index 1d609d2455..afbefb64c0 100644
--- a/django/forms/fields.py
+++ b/django/forms/fields.py
@@ -210,8 +210,10 @@ class Field(six.with_metaclass(RenameFieldMethods, object)):
 
 
 class CharField(Field):
-    def __init__(self, max_length=None, min_length=None, *args, **kwargs):
-        self.max_length, self.min_length = max_length, min_length
+    def __init__(self, max_length=None, min_length=None, strip=True, *args, **kwargs):
+        self.max_length = max_length
+        self.min_length = min_length
+        self.strip = strip
         super(CharField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
         if min_length is not None:
             self.validators.append(validators.MinLengthValidator(int(min_length)))
@@ -222,7 +224,10 @@ class CharField(Field):
         "Returns a Unicode object."
         if value in self.empty_values:
             return ''
-        return smart_text(value)
+        value = force_text(value)
+        if self.strip:
+            value = value.strip()
+        return value
 
     def widget_attrs(self, widget):
         attrs = super(CharField, self).widget_attrs(widget)
@@ -539,6 +544,7 @@ class RegexField(CharField):
         error_message is an optional error message to use, if
         'Enter a valid value' is too generic for you.
         """
+        kwargs.setdefault('strip', False)
         # error_message is just kept for backwards compatibility:
         if error_message is not None:
             warnings.warn(
@@ -1231,10 +1237,6 @@ class GenericIPAddressField(CharField):
 class SlugField(CharField):
     default_validators = [validators.validate_slug]
 
-    def clean(self, value):
-        value = self.to_python(value).strip()
-        return super(SlugField, self).clean(value)
-
 
 class UUIDField(CharField):
     default_error_messages = {
diff --git a/docs/ref/forms/fields.txt b/docs/ref/forms/fields.txt
index dbade5c5d9..c4a40021d0 100644
--- a/docs/ref/forms/fields.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/forms/fields.txt
@@ -361,7 +361,7 @@ For each field, we describe the default widget used if you don't specify
       Otherwise, all inputs are valid.
     * Error message keys: ``required``, ``max_length``, ``min_length``
 
-    Has two optional arguments for validation:
+    Has three optional arguments for validation:
 
     .. attribute:: max_length
     .. attribute:: min_length
@@ -369,6 +369,13 @@ For each field, we describe the default widget used if you don't specify
     If provided, these arguments ensure that the string is at most or at least
     the given length.
 
+    .. attribute:: strip
+
+       .. versionadded:: 1.9
+
+       If ``True`` (default), the value will be stripped of leading and
+       trailing whitespace.
+
 ``ChoiceField``
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
@@ -824,8 +831,15 @@ For each field, we describe the default widget used if you don't specify
         A regular expression specified either as a string or a compiled regular
         expression object.
 
-    Also takes ``max_length`` and ``min_length``, which work just as they do for
-    ``CharField``.
+    Also takes ``max_length``, ``min_length``, and ``strip``, which work just
+    as they do for ``CharField``.
+
+    .. attribute:: strip
+
+        .. versionadded:: 1.9
+
+        Defaults to ``False``. If enabled, stripping will be applied before the
+        regex validation.
 
     .. deprecated:: 1.8
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.9.txt b/docs/releases/1.9.txt
index 48c850f9a7..b1a799f8bf 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.9.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.9.txt
@@ -302,6 +302,11 @@ Forms
 * You can now :ref:`specify keyword arguments <custom-formset-form-kwargs>`
   that you want to pass to the constructor of forms in a formset.
 
+* :class:`~django.forms.CharField` now accepts a
+  :attr:`~django.forms.CharField.strip` argument to strip input data of leading
+  and trailing whitespace.  As this defaults to ``True`` this is different
+  behavior from previous releases.
+
 Generic Views
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
@@ -552,7 +557,7 @@ Database backend API
   SQLite backend to add time lookups (hour, minute, second) to
   :class:`~django.db.models.TimeField`, and may be needed by third-party
   database backends.
-  
+
 * The ``DatabaseOperations.datetime_cast_sql()`` method (not to be confused
   with ``DatabaseOperations.datetime_cast_date_sql()`` mentioned above)
   has been removed. This method served to format dates on Oracle long
@@ -822,6 +827,10 @@ Miscellaneous
   be serialized contains any control characters not allowed in the XML 1.0
   standard, the serialization will fail with a :exc:`ValueError`.
 
+* :class:`~django.forms.CharField` now strips input of leading and trailing
+  whitespace by default. This can be disabled by setting the new
+  :attr:`~django.forms.CharField.strip` argument to ``False``.
+
 .. _deprecated-features-1.9:
 
 Features deprecated in 1.9
diff --git a/tests/forms_tests/tests/test_fields.py b/tests/forms_tests/tests/test_fields.py
index 41ed7b5f45..bfc88d7162 100644
--- a/tests/forms_tests/tests/test_fields.py
+++ b/tests/forms_tests/tests/test_fields.py
@@ -164,6 +164,18 @@ class FieldsTests(SimpleTestCase):
         self.assertEqual(f.widget_attrs(PasswordInput()), {'maxlength': '10'})
         self.assertEqual(f.widget_attrs(Textarea()), {'maxlength': '10'})
 
+    def test_charfield_strip(self):
+        """
+        Ensure that values have whitespace stripped and that strip=False works.
+        """
+        f = CharField()
+        self.assertEqual(f.clean(' 1'), '1')
+        self.assertEqual(f.clean('1 '), '1')
+
+        f = CharField(strip=False)
+        self.assertEqual(f.clean(' 1'), ' 1')
+        self.assertEqual(f.clean('1 '), '1 ')
+
     # IntegerField ################################################################
 
     def test_integerfield_1(self):