To prove this assertion,[51] Professor William O.Scroggs has shown that, in 1910, 16.6 per cent of the Negroes had moved to some other State than that in which they were born, while during the same period 22.4 per cent of the whites had done the same.[52] The South, however, was not disposed to look at the vagrancy of the ex-slaves so philosophically.

That section had been devastated by war and to rebuild these waste places reliable labor was necessary.

Legislatures of the slave States, therefore, immediately after the close of the war, granted the Negro nominal freedom but enacted measures of vagrancy and labor so as to reduce the Negro again almost to the status of a slave.
White magistrates were given wide discretion in adjudging Negroes vagrants.[53] Negroes had to sign contracts to work.

If without what was considered a just cause the Negro left the employ of a planter, the former could be arrested and forced to work and in some sections with ball and chain.

If the employer did not care to take him back he could be hired out by the county or confined in jail.