I mean, it’s not a secret. That’s what the clause was almost explicitly for. Slaves freed, vagrancy or similar becomes a crime, former slaves become prisoners because people won’t give them jobs so they don’t live in a house (also at the judgement of legal/judicial officials as to what counted as housed), many go back to the same plantations/workhouses they were already at.

It didn’t slip through, it’s not a conspiracy theory, and it isn’t the quiet part being said out loud. It was always loud.