Many of those who have already been sent off, went with _their
avowed consent_, but under the influence of a more decided
compulsion than any which this bill holds out. I will not
express, in its full extent, the idea I entertain of what has
been done, or what enormities will be perpetrated to induce this
class of persons to leave the State. Who does not know that when
a free negro, by crime or otherwise, has rendered himself
obnoxious to a neighborhood, how easy it is for a party to visit
him one night, take him from his bed and family, and apply to
him the gentle admonition of a severe flagellation, to induce
him to _consent_ to go away? In a few nights the dose can be
repeated, perhaps increased, until, in the language of the
physicians, _quantum suff._ has been administered to produce the
desired operation; and the fellow then becomes _perfectly
willing_ to move away. I have certainly heard, if incorrectly,
the gentleman from Southampton will put me right, that of the
large cargo of emigrants lately transported from that country to
Liberia, all of whom _professed_ to be _willing_ to go, were
rendered so by some such severe ministrations as those I have
described. A lynch club--a committee of vigilance--could easily
exercise a kind of inquisitorial _surveillance_ over any
neighborhood, and convert any desired number, I have no doubt,
at any time, into a willingness to be removed. But who really
prefers such means as these to the course proposed in this bill?
And one or the other is inevitable. For no matter how you change
this bill--sooner or later the free negroes will be _forced_ to
leave the State. Indeed, Sir, ALL OF US LOOK TO FORCE of some
kind or other, direct or indirect, moral or physical, legal or
illegal. Many who are opposed, they say, to any compulsory
feature in the bill, desire to introduce such severe regulations
into our police laws--such restrictions of their existing
privileges--such inability to hold property--obtain
employment--rent residences, &c., as to make it impossible for
them to remain amongst us. _Is not this force?_'

Mr Fisher said:

'If we wait until the free negroes consent to leave the State,
we shall wait until "time is no more." _They never will give
their consent_; and if the House amend the bill as proposed,
their consent is in