Ohio Black Code

About the Author

The Ohio legislature wrote and approved the laws known as the Black Code. Many of the representatives in Ohio’s first legislature were Jeffersonian Republicans originally from slaveholding states such as Virginia and Kentucky. Philemon Beecher authored the original bill proposal in 1803. James Dunlap served as chairman of the committee responsible for drafting the statute. Stephen Wood and James Smith also helped draft the statute, and William Gaffs advised the senate about the legislation.

Philemon Beecher was primarily responsible for the 1807 amendments. In 1806, Beecher authored the bill to revise the 1804 act. Beecher was born in Connecticut, where he was also educated as a lawyer. He moved to Lancaster, Ohio, in 1801 and continued to practice law; two years later he was elected to the first of two terms in the state house of representatives. Beecher identified with the Federalist Party, which stood for a strong central government and the growth of industry in the United States. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Federalist in 1817, serving until 1821. During this time he participated in the debates over the admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave state. He voted for the Missouri Compromise, which brought Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Beecher was unseated in 1820 but won again in 1823 after running as a member of another political party. He served as an Ohio representative until 1829.