Well, unfortunately you are very correct. The Exception Clause was added and promoted by a pro-slavery Harvard Senator from Missouri in 1864. It established a basis to arrest freed blacks on felony charges for vagrancy to re-enslave them and Mississippi made vagrancy laws immediately and started arresting freed blacks for standing around and not working. By the 1880s and 90s, many Southern states run by whites took in half or more of their budgetary revenue from convict leasing. In other words, the states captured the labor of black “felons” into business contracts then charged white businessmen a fee to lease that labor for fixed terms, which today we call minimum sentences. In 2022 Louisiana voted to KEEP slavery in the state constitution while Oregon voted to end it.
Thank you.