Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

by Kate Masur

The substitute bill was dramatically different from its precursor. Now the legislators defined the problem not as one of race but rather of vagrancy. The new proposal empowered the mayor and other Philadelphia officials to “commit to prison any vagrant or other idle or disorderly person living without employment, wandering about begging, having no visible means of subsistence, or being unable to give a reasonable account of himself or herself or of his or her business.” Persons convicted of vagrancy would be forced to labor for various lengths of time, depending on how often they had been so convicted. In the ensuing debate, legislators mostly sought to reduce the length of sentences for vagrancy convictions. The House then officially renamed the bill. Instead of bearing a name that associated it with prejudice against persons of color, House Bill 202 was now called “An act to prevent the increase of idle and disorderly persons within this commonwealth.”