Virginia laws and practices, derived in part from English precedent, had long distinguished vagrants, or vagabonds, from poor people in general. In legislation passed in 1785 and then revised two years later , the General Assembly established local boards to find paying work for poor people and provide minimal essential relief at public expense. Vagrants, defined as "not betaking themselves to honest occupations," were treated differently, however. As early as 1748, Virginia law had described vagrants as "idle and disorderly," and a 1776 revision authorized their arrest. Now the law prescribed apprehension and forced labor. And if a vagrant should attempt to flee, "he or they shall be dealt with in the same manner as other run away servants." Lawmakers worried that vagrants would become beggars or even thieves and, therefore, treated them as a threat to public safety.

At the end of the Civil War, white lawmakers similarly worried about the perhaps hundreds of thousands of African Americans who wandered the roads of Virginia. Many of them had just been freed from slavery , many were without homes or steady work, and many journeyed in search of relatives who had been dispersed by the slave trade. Their freedom overturned a centuries-long racial hierarchy and left many whites concerned about public safety and, more importantly, white social and political supremacy. By recalling old definitions of vagrancy—in fact, borrowing almost verbatim the definition found in a Pennsylvania law from 1836 — the General Assembly found a convenient means of controlling these African Americans and subjecting them to punishments for unemployment or homelessness.

Not all white politicians considered freedpeople, in general, a nuisance. In a message to the General Assembly dated December 4, 1865, Governor Francis H. Pierpont, a Republican, explained that many former slaves worried that if they "remained with their old master they would be in danger of re-enslavement—hence they became roving." Pierpont noted that "where satisfactory wages are paid," African Americans often rendered "fair service," but that such situations were rare. For reasons of mutual distrust and, in many cases, ignorance of how the free-labor system even worked, early attempts between black and white Virginians to enter into employment contracts had failed. Agents of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands , as well as civil authorities in Virginia, were well aware of the many problems that occurred, but did not adequately address them.

"To be free, labor must be voluntary," Pierpont told the assembly. "Every effort to enforce it by law, except as a punishment for crime and vagrancy, will result in failure. Idleness brings its own punishment. After the most mature consideration I have been able to give to the subject, I think there is very little positive legislation needed in regard to this class."