Further evidence of racial prejudice came in 1807, when the state, choosing economic interests with neighboring slave states to be more important than humanitarian considerations, passed a law requiring all Negroes coming into Ohio to post a $500 bond, severely limiting black migration to the new state, although very few attempts were made to enforce it. The last of the Ohio black laws were repealed in 1849.

In 1816, in order to help resolve the "race problem," the American Colonization Society was established with pro-slavery sponsors such as John Calhoun of South Carolina and Henry Clay of Kentucky, to transport blacks voluntarily back to Africa. Very few of them accepted the offer since they now considered America their home. In 1822, the society established the colony of Liberia on Africa’s west coast as a further enhancement for black emigration. By 1850, only about 12,000 had left for a new life in Liberia, which, in 1847, became the first black self-governing republic in Africa.