Ohio Black Code

Essential Quotes

“Each and every free, able-bodied, white male citizen of the state, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen and under the age of forty-five years, except as hereinafter excepted, shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia.”

“From and after the first day of June next [1804], no black or mulatto person, shall be permitted to settle or reside in this state, unless he or she shall first produce a fair certificate from some court with the United States, of his or her actual freedom, which certificate shall be attested by the clerk of said court.”

“No person or persons’ residents of this state, shall be permitted to hire, or in any way employ any black or mulatto person, unless such black or mulatto person shall have one of the certificates as aforesaid.”

“That in case any person or persons, his or their agents, claiming any black or mulatto person that now are, or hereafter may be in this state, may apply, upon making satisfactory proof that such black or mulatto person or persons is the property of him or her … the associate judge or justice is thereby empowered … to arrest such black or mulatto person or persons, and deliver the same in the county or township where such officers shall reside.”

“No negro or mulatto person shall be permitted to emigrate into, and settle within this state, unless such negro or mulatto person shall, within twenty days thereafter, enter into bond with two or more freehold sureties, in the penal sum of five hundred dollars.”

“No black or mulatto person or persons shall hereafter be permitted to be sworn or give evidence in any court of record, or elsewhere, in this state, in any cause depending, or matter of controversy, where either party to the same is a white person.”