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

by Kate Masur

The House agreed, by a vote of 49 to 29, to move ahead with this new version of the bill. Sutherland, Duane, and Mitchell—all of whom were already on record supporting measures that directly targeted persons of African descent—signed on, and the House passed the bill. The Senate was not interested, however, and it rejected the House bill at the end of the session.36 Still, the debate had been instructive. Evidently the language of race and class were to some extent fungible. Legislators who first sought to target African Americans likely knew that authorities could use discretion when enforcing race-neutral laws regulating vagrancy and disorderly conduct, allowing them to accomplish the desired ends even if the statute itself made no reference to race.