Report, page 110. "Further, several of the
slaveholding states had, and perhaps all of them would,
prohibit entirely, emancipation, without some such outlet was
created. A sense of their own safety required the painful
prohibition. Experience proved that persons turned loose who
were neither freemen nor slaves, constituted a great moral
evil, threatening to contaminate all parts of society. Let
the colony once be successfully planted, and legislative
bodies who have been grieved at the necessity of passing
those 'prohibitory laws,' which at a distance might appear to
'stain our codes,' will hasten to remove the impediments to
the exercise of benevolence and humanity. They will annex the
condition that the emancipated shall leave the country, and
he has placed a false estimate upon liberty, who believes
there are many who would refuse the boon, when coupled even
with such a condition."

Here there was compulsion, both in principle and precept. In the laws
of Maryland, and elsewhere, were found abundant evidences of
compulsion in practice, and where there were no direct acts forcing
them to depart, a public sentiment had been created, which, in its
manifold operations, brought the colored man, crushed and hopeless, to
the conclusion, that it would be better for him to say farewell to
home and country, than remain a proverb and a nuisance amongst a
prejudiced and persecuting people. No colored man could justly be said
to go to Liberia, or elsewhere, with his free and unconstrained
consent, until the laws were equal, the treatment kind, prejudice
founded on complexion destroyed, and he presented himself a voluntary
agent, and asked the means to transport him to a foreign shore. As one
proof that compulsion had been openly and unblushingly advocated, he
would quote the words of Mr. Broadnax in the Virginia House of
Delegates:----

"It is idle to talk about not resorting to force; every body
must look to the introduction of force of some kind or
other--and it is in truth a question of expediency, of moral
justice, of political good faith--whether we shall fairly
delineate our whole system on the face of the bill, or leave
the acquisition of extorted consent to other processes. The
real question, the only question of magnitude to be settled,
is the great preliminary question--Do you intend to send the
free persons of color out o