REVUE

DES

COLONIES,

MONTHLY COMPENDIUM1 OF POLITICS, ADMINISTRATION, JUSTICE, INSTRUCTION AND COLONIAL CUSTOMS,

BY A

SOCIETY OF MEN OF COLOR

DIRECTED BY

C.-A. BISSETTE

.

N°1July.

PARIS, AT THE OFFICE OF THE REVUE DES COLONIES,46, RUE NEUVE-SAINT-EUSTACHE

1834.

REVUE

DES

COLONIES

Prospectus.

As of now, the colonies, generally speaking, only know of the great principles of philanthropy in theory; of freedom in action, nothing at all.

The suffering and oppressed classes appeal and fight relentlessly, always in vain. To stimulate the feeble good will to which our rulers limit themselves, it is necessary to compile the just complaints that arise from all sides. These claims, these grievances, to be successful, must receive the greatest publicity: this is the object of our

Revue

The debate floor today is no longer enough; petitions are adjourned by the calculated negligence of rapporteurs or pushed back by the insolent agendas of the day. On the other hand, colonial authorities, always disposed in favor of the privileged, cleverly evade the ministers' prescriptions. Against this hitherto successful tactic of the partisans of aristocracy and privilege, it is necessary to finally engage the power of public opinion, enlightened by a discussion always wise, always true, but energetic and never timid, of the causes, whatever they may be, which hinder the desirable fusion of the diverse populations of the colonies.2

For this purpose, a specialized journal is founded under the title of

Revue des Colonies

, with

M. Bissette

as director.

This journal is not only dedicated to all that concerns the colonies, considered as a source of news and interesting facts apt to occupy the leisure of the reader, but it devotes itself entirely to the political, intellectual, moral and industrial interests of colonists of either color.3

Nothing that concerns the French colonies in particular will be omitted from this monthly publication. The government, the administration, and the justice system will be examined here with respect to both their actions and their persons; for it is the latter that too often determines the spirit and the manner in which populations are either oppressed or well looked after.

The civil, political, and social rights of the two free classes, which, having been hitherto divided, ought to be united, will here be advanced and supported with indefatigable zeal.

The great question of the abolition of slavery, the cornerstone of liberty, will here be treated with the most conscientious care and the most ardent love of equality and of the general good.4

Arbitrariness and partiality will here be brought to face the court of public opinion with no distinction between persons. The weak will find here support and protection, the oppressor, punishment, the official, warranted blame for his illegal acts, but respect for his person.

The Revue des Colonies will also concern itself with all the changes made or projected in the legislation that governs foreign colonies and inevitably affects our own in a powerful way.5

National interests, in relation to the possession of

Algiers

, will find in the Revue des Colonies a devoted and independent outlet.6

Numerous and knowledgeable correspondents ensure that readers find as much variety as edification in the articles of the Revue des Colonies.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES.

The Revue des Colonies believes it must, above all, indicate by what principles it will offer judgment upon men and things.7 In its estimation, '89, in the immortal Declaration of Rights voted by the

National Assembly

, laid the future foundations of all truly democratic institutions; this is why we inscribe this Declaration at the beginning of this compendium: these are the tables of our law.

The rights of men had been misunderstood, insulted for centuries; they have been restored for all mankind by this Declaration, which will forever remain a rallying cry against oppressors, and a law for legislators themselves.

(Address of the National Assembly to the French People, 11 February 1790.)

Excerpt

FROM THE MINUTES OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF AUGUST 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26 AND OCTOBER 1st, 1789.

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN IN SOCIETY.8

The representatives of the French People, formed into a National Assembly, considering ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man to be the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, unalienable and sacred rights of man, to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, since they may be continually compared with the aim of every political institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and incontestable principles, may always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all.

In consequence whereof, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Article 1.— Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.

2.— The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression.

3.— The source of all sovereignty lies essentially in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.

4.— Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law.

5.— The Law has the right to forbid only those actions that are injurious to society. Nothing that is not forbidden by Law may be hindered, and no one may be compelled to do what the Law does not ordain.

6.—

The Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, personally or through their representatives, in its making. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.

7.— No man may be accused, arrested or detained except in the cases determined by the Law, and following the procedure that it has prescribed. Those who solicit, expedite, carry out, or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders must be punished; but any citizen summoned or apprehended by virtue of the Law, must give instant obedience; resistance makes him guilty.

8.— The Law must prescribe only the punishments that are strictly and evidently necessary; and no one may be punished except by virtue of a Law drawn up and promulgated before the offense is committed, and legally applied.

9.— As every man is presumed innocent until he has been declared guilty, if it should be considered necessary to arrest him, any undue harshness that is not required to secure his person must be severely curbed by Law.

10.— No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.

11.— The free communication of ideas and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. Any citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.

12.— To guarantee the Rights of Man and of the Citizen a public force is necessary; this force is therefore established for the benefit of all, and not for the particular use of those to whom it is entrusted.

13.— For the maintenance of the public force, and for administrative expenses, a general tax is indispensable; it must be equally distributed among all citizens, in proportion to their ability to pay.

14.— All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves, or through their representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to watch over its use, and to determine its proportion, basis, collection and duration.

15.— Society has the right to ask a public official for an accounting of his administration.

16.— Any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution.

17.— Since the right to Property is inviolable and sacred, no one may be deprived thereof, unless public necessity, legally ascertained, obviously requires it, and just and prior indemnity has been paid.

Excerpt from the minutes of the National Assembly, October 1, 1789. Collated true to the original. Signed MOUNIER, president; Viscount DE MIRABEAU, DEMEUNIER, BUREAU DE Pusy, Bishop DE NANCY, FAYDEL, Abbot of EYMAR, secretaries.

All of the principles of '89 are in this declaration; and, whatever one does, there is in these principles, which the French Revolution, by its republican and imperial armies, has sown across the land of Europe, and by its books everywhere in the universe, a power which cannot be suppressed.

Certainly, if a man should be reminded of anything, it is his rights, which aristocracies may well succeed in making obsolete here and there, but to which the future belongs.

We ask that we compare the present state of our legislation with this page of justice and liberty, that we examine whether the laws that are made for us are in conformity with the principles of this declaration, which must be forever, according to the fine expression of the National Assembly, the law of the legislators themselves. And if this examination clearly shows that the government, whatever it may be, is not founded on this one equitable basis — the enforcement of the rights of all — those who, like us and with the National Assembly, will be convinced that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt for the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of governments, will triumphantly conclude that all the evil of the present situation, in the colonies as everywhere, is absolutely a result of this ignorance, of this forgetfulness or of this contempt, we cannot precisely say which, as much on the part of the rulers as on that of the governed.

The director,

BISSETTE

.

A LOOK AT THE COLONIAL REGIME AND ITS EFFECTS.

The deplorable events of Grand'Anse,9

Martinique

have echoed through every newspaper. Some, inspired by the authorities, in whose eyes all that is emancipation becomes an object of terror, have presented this affair in an unfavorable light to those who have limited themselves to passive resistance.10 Others, more benevolent, and above all, more impartial, were careful not to pass premature judgment on a matter of this nature: they knew that passion exaggerates both evil and good, and that one should not rush to adopt the words of a powerful and often unjust party.

We too will attend to this matter, but by prefacing it with all the considerations necessary to draw the correct conclusions.

These facts, which seem to us hardly believable, are repeated every day with impunity in our colonies. And how could it not be so, when the men charged with maintaining the laws are those most interested in violating them! Arbitrariness is therefore only the sad corollary of a state of affairs whose origins date back to a time of conquest, plunder and brutal violence. We know that this arbitrariness exists; philosophy has decried it; power itself seems to reject a shameful solidarity, and yet nothing real has been done to put an end to it. Everything has been deceit and lies, from the illusory measures against the slave trade, to the laws which seem to grant men of color the rights of citizens, and a justice that one could not truthfully represent scales in hand.

These causes, which, deriving from the overall regime of the colonies, would seem foreign to the events of Grand'Anse, to which we will attend more particularly, 11 are nevertheless attached to them by a multitude of threads: for nothing in the fate of peoples, as in that of men, is isolated, and the actual effects are often produced by causes lost to the depths of time.

The colonies too, despite their distance from the motherland, felt the effects of the great political commotion which regenerated France. A long subjugation, largely exploited by the aristocracy, had not been able to paralyze hearts so much that they did not feel warmed by the rays of the sun of freedom. Men of color especially, more advantaged than the unfortunate slaves, turned their eyes towards France with love and confidence; they felt that each link which fell from the chains of old Europe was for them a pledge of emancipation. The emblazoned nobility, elevated to the rank of people, offered an edifying lesson to the nobility of the skin,12 which did not even possess the prestige of the former's personal accomplishments. The destruction of one was the sure guarantee of the destruction of the other. Was not the emancipation of the people, who had long suffered the bondage of the field, also a sign of freedom for the slaves? There was therefore in the colonies what is still there today, an absurd aristocracy clinging to its privileges and willing to go to any length to preserve them, and on the other hand a population full of verve, of energy, beginning to understand its rights and its dignity.

Such, then, was the position of the colonies when the July Revolution,13 so rich in prospects, made conceivable for a moment the awakening of France. The new government, carried along, no doubt in spite of itself, by the force of circumstance, not daring to lift the veil which hid its ulterior motives, finally bowing before public opinion which had just had its impact felt, erased the word regulations from the article of the charter concerning the colonies. It declared that the colonies would be governed by special laws.14 This tacit recognition of abuses of all kinds, originating in the corrupted system of ordinances, stoked the hopes of those who could still put some faith in ministers' promises. It was because they did not believe that a government born of democracy could so quickly forget its origin; they did not comprehend that the preservation of titles of nobility, of a so-called upper chamber, and above all of an exaggerated civil list were milestones laid down by the nascent power to constitute itself on bases similar to that which the popular arm had just crushed. Did not the preservation of the titled nobility in the motherland,15 and the addition that was made to it of a Turcarets aristrocracy,16 clearly impart to the colonies that, except for a few slight adjustments, their aristocracy of skin would be preserved along with most of its privileges.

Indeed these fine particular laws were rendered so illusory as to match the ordinances' arbitrariness,17 differing from them only by the hypocrisy of the name. For example, is not the electoral law, establishing the political rights of whites and of men of color, a work of perfidious deception? On the

isle of Bourbon

and of

Cayenne

, where the whites are in overwhelming majority, the electoral qualification and eligibility are fixed at a lower rate, for there is no fear of competition; but in the colonies of

Guadeloupe

and

Martinique

, where the population of color, quite numerous, is of average wealth, the tax is preemptively raised to an unattainable level. Is there anything more perfidious, I would even say more odiously ironic, than to thus concede the right while prohibiting the means. Would it not have been truer to declare outright that only whites could vote?18

It became difficult, in the presence of this law of political organization, creating or rather sanctioning a privilege, to allow for the action of the popular will. The national guard, that admirable institution of the métropole,19 had a pale imitation in the colonies, where both the name and the democratic element of election were carefully banished.

If France has a national guard, the colonies have a militia whose officers, appointed by the governor, are generally taken from the white population and from among a few men of color. These, to keep a rank obtained by favor, devote themselves unquestioningly to the governor and become his accomplices. We hasten to say that, among those promoted, we count friends who have not wavered in their political opinions, but not all of them are so. When power makes itself odious by its partiality, it always corrupts the men who make themselves its supporters. What bonds can indeed unite men who find themselves in a position so false as the colonial militia and its leaders? Trust? It does not exist. Fraternity? it would be vain to search for it there. So there remains only force, and it is indeed felt everyday.

In the judicial system, abuses abound, and they are always to the advantage of the aristocratic class. The royal courts and the magistrates' courts are constituted in such a way as to let the whites become judges and parties in their own cause. Finally, despite the very text of the charter, provost courts can still bloody the soil of the colonies by legally assassinating the innocent people they want to get rid of.

Well! in the presence of this boundless arbitrariness, leaning on their numerous privileges, the whites groan and complain that the government has dared to touch the holy ark of their power, by diminishing some of their privileges. Political rights, they possess them all; the judicial power is in their hands; law enforcement, they direct and command it; but it is not enough to suit their wounded pride. A principle, admittedly without application, has been issued; the word equality was spoken, was it not enough to offend those selfish and hard hearts for whom every independent man who is not part of their league is but a worthless rebellious slave?20 Men of color, on the contrary, confident in the government's feeble pledges of good will, waited patiently for better days perfecting their political education so as to wield the influence that they are entitled to in their country by their rights and numbers. And what do they really want that is not wise and reasonable? Placed in their land in the same position as the third estate in France before the Revolution, they then ask what this order commanded: liberty and equality. But they are dealing with privileged people who are even more tenacious than the nobility and clergy of France. These at least did not have the impudence to deny the title of men to their adversaries.21

By what means, then, could the privileged recover the integrity of their privileges? To ask the government for them was impossible, they would have been told to bide their time; that the compromise was only a matter of painful necessity; that, moreover, the liberties granted to the mulattoes were purely illusory, being limited in reality to a few slight concessions of sociability.22 And furthermore these same concessions often bend according to the whims of the aristocracy. These answers, which would satisfy less impatient, and above all less prideful men, would have deeply wounded those imperious masters whose despotism is exercised without control over unfortunate slaves. It was therefore necessary to employ all means, even calumny, to subjugate the class of color and crush it.23 It had to be represented as factious, turbulent, having sworn to destroy the whites and stopping at nothing, not murder, not arson, to accomplish this. It is so easy to slander men who are not allowed to defend themselves! To find guilty the enemy that one judges oneself! And then the colonies also count among their ranks men who know how to create conspiracies, foment them, cause them to arise at the right time, in order to take advantage of them in their own interest. And what does it really matter that the worthless blood of a few negroes comes to redden the ground! What does it matter if a mulatto's head rolls on the scaffold! Mere trifles, when you consider the glorious result expected of it; that is, the bondage of the many for the benefit of the few. Besides, the métropole offers a few examples which would seem to authorize the colonies in this Machiavellianism.

And so we have seen the birth of these imaginary plots, these conflagrations whose frequency during certain periods bespeaks frightful mysteries. Innocents have been accused, thrown into dungeons, tortured, shot without pity when they allowed themselves a few complaints. Neither sex nor age could soften these ferocious men who subject their slaves to the most sophisticated cruelties, and their gold, thrown at the heads of the proconsuls of the great nation, hides large stains of blood from their eyes.

Ah! if some day an eloquent pen tearing the funereal veil which covers our colonies, would retrace the history of domination of the possessors of men; if it evoked from the depths of their tombs the sad victims who are heaped there every day, never would a country defiled by tyranny offer such horrible pages.24 All that we read of the Mésences, the Caligulas, the Louis XIs,25 all that our hearts refuse to believe as too degrading for humanity, finds itself surpassed in the nineteenth century by overseas Frenchmen. But these horrible scenes of despotism have no place here, elsewhere we will reveal them by throwing the names of their infamous authors among the ignominies of history.

REVUE

DES

COLONIES

MONTHLY COMPENDIUM OF POLITICS, ADMINISTRATION, JUSTICE, INSTRUCTION AND COLONIAL CUSTOMS,

DIRECTED

BY

C.-A. BISSETTE

.

2nd year — n.1 — July.

Am I not a man and your brother?....26

PARIS, AT THE OFFICE OF THE REVUE DES COLONIES, 28, RUE LOUIS-LE-GRAND.

1835.

REVUE DES COLONIES

2nd YEAR. JULY 1835. N° 1.

On the abolition of slavery by the National Convention.

— Bill for the abolition of slavery.

— Inquiry into the colonies, Vote on the last law on the colonies.

— Electoral question.

— FRANCE. House of Representatives. Discussion of the budget of the Navy and the Colonies.

— Of the passing of the law relating to criminal legislation.

— Chamber of Peers.

— Discussion of the law of an additional credit of 650,000 francs granted to the Minister of the Navy and the Colonies.

— Foreign colonies. Bermuda. Barbados.

— Miscellaneous News.

— Varieties.

— Biography.

— Poetry.

— Bibliography.27

ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY BY THE NATIONAL CONVENTION. — REVUE DES COLONIES BILL.

Slavery, which is tending to disappear completely and in all its forms from human societies, and the abolition of which by legislative means in our colonies cannot be long in coming, was once already outlawed, with admirable spontaneity, by the

National Convention

. The National Convention did not put off this just reparation for an hour, and from the moment that the question had been submitted, it was resolved without hesitation in the direction of the Revolution and of the philosophical spirit of the eighteenth century; better said yet, it was not even a question. In the first preoccupations of '89, the colonies were only considered momentarily. In a rush, free men of color were called to enjoy the rights of citizenship. In the colonies themselves, the question, although then as now at the heart of the matter, was kept as far as possible out of discussion by a kind of apprehension and vague dread of the future.

However, the Revolution had taken effect. The new ideas distributed by the press, spread by the word, had crossed the seas;28 the French Antilles29 were also consumed with this new state of mind. In general, however, it was only among the whites that parties had been formed. In the colonies as in France there were revolutionaries, and counter-revolutionaries, supporters of royalty and supporters of democracy. The tricolor flag had appeared to some as an odious sign, to others, a glorious sign; the latter were the most numerous, the former the richest. Hence divisions, parties; a silent disagreement between those who clung desperately to the privileges of the past, and those whom the breath of new liberty had touched as it crossed the seas. The debate was still only between them. Of the liberation of slaves, not a clear and distinct word, as if the rights of man had not been proclaimed and the Bastille had not been taken. By whatever names the colonists used, republican or royalist, none among them was led by the spirit of the age30 to draw from the principles that they claimed for themselves, a conclusion favorable to the freedom of the other race; the distinction of color remained, slavery was the holy ark which no one dreamed of touching.

However, the counter-revolutionary work advanced,

England

, then at the head of the retrograde movement, attacked us everywhere in the two seas. Mistress of

Martinique

, poorly defended by its inhabitants, of whom several, and of the highest rank, were traitors to the fatherland (1),31 England had vainly tried to conquer several other points, including

Guadeloupe

and

Saint-Domingue

. Saint-Domingue, however, was seriously threatened. At the first news of the danger, the National Convention sent two of its members to organize the defense: they found nothing but dispiritedness.

In the most perilous circumstances, the commissioners had recourse to a great measure of public safety, completely conforming to the

(1) M. le Chevalier Dubuc, who then was at the head of the colonial committee in Martinique, crossed furtively to the island of Dominica, whence he embarked for England, and returned with the English Admiral Gardener to attempt the conquest of Martinique. This expedition, which was repelled with heavy losses, did not discourage M. Dubuc; he returned to England, and succeeded in inducing the British government to grant him, as well as M. de Clairfontaine, deputy for Guadeloupe, new forces for the conquest of Guadeloupe and Martinique. A squadron, under the orders of Admiral Jervis, and an army under the orders of General Grey, seized Martinique in 1794. Guadeloupe thus fell into the power of the English, but they were driven out forty days later.

nature of their mission and for which they took full responsibility: they called the slaves to freedom. The slaves rushed in mass to the defense of the colony, and from then on the blacks32 were won over to the great cause of the French republic.

In the meantime, an election was held in Saint-Domingue in which all classes of the population took part, without distinction of color.

Dufahy

a courageous and kindhearted man, who had shown in the administration of his properties at Saint-Domingue an unequivocal sympathy for the oppressed race, was one of the deputies appointed on this occasion.

Scarcely had the National Convention learned of the acts of

Polverel

and of

Sonthonax

, its commissioners with regard to everything concerning slaves, that it approved them; their greatness was recognized. And immediately, to the applause of the immortal assembly, was pronounced forthwith, at the request of Dufahy, not only the emancipation of the entire black race, but also its reintegration into the great national family.33

Thus was manifested, at the first appeal with regard to the blacks, the French Revolution's spirit of justice; and its project of the reintegration of the rights of man, undertaken against all obstacles, seemed for a moment codified forever.

It was in the month of February 1794, that the National Convention issued the memorable decree which abolished slavery throughout the French colonies; a decree believed to be forever irrevocable.

All that remained for the French Republic to do was to take pride in this most glorious measure, to which it proceeded with such a resolute spirit and with such firmness. Freedom established itself in consequence, de facto and de jure, in those of our colonies which England had not succeeded in seizing.

The emancipation of the blacks had the first result of preserving for France its richest colony, Saint-Domingue. Once free, the blacks of Saint-Domingue, who it would have been hardly surprising to see comport themselves differently upon achieving liberty, gave striking proofs of their good will, and of their aptitude for all kinds of work. Under this regenerative regime, the colony organized itself, the workshops were all in activity, the crops flourished. This state of affairs lasted, not without remarkable progress, until 1802, when

Napoleon

, misled by the fatality of his illiberal ideas, tried to reestablish slavery where the National Convention had made it disappear. We must see in Mr. Macaulay's excellent book on Haiti 34 the curious details of this somewhat improvised emancipation of the black race in the most considerable of our colonial possessions of that period. Mr. Macaulay's work is filled not only with unknown facts about the war of independence in

Haiti

, but also with irrefutable evidence against the errors propagated with the most flagrant bad faith by the enemies of the cause of the blacks.

He triumphantly proves that the greatest disasters were the result of the return to slavery in 1802, undertaken beyond all reason and all necessity by the First Consul.

The French army, fighting for a bad cause, was defeated, and perished. The blacks remained masters of the land, and laid there the foundations of the social state which they enjoy today, a social state far superior to that of many supposedly civilized European nations.35 The problem of free labor in the Antilles was thereby solved, and today the example of the emancipated English colonies must have convinced even the most dimwitted of the falsity and infamy of the assertions of the colonists against the blacks.36

That which was decreed by the National Convention in 1794, for the French possessions, which was established by force of circumstance following the wars of independence of Saint-Domingue, which has just been organized for the English colonies, namely: the emancipation of the blacks and free labor, we claim it today on the most legitimate grounds, in the name of principle and necessity, and we want to establish it by reason and according to a law of justice and reparation, without delay.37

BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE FRENCH COLONIES.

Considering that slavery is contrary to all divine and human laws; that it could only have been established through violence, injustice and contempt for the most imprescriptible of human rights, the right to dispose of one's person and one's work according to one's will, insofar as this will does not infringe upon the rights of others, which it is for the law alone to determine; considering that slavery is not only a usurpation of man by man, which can no longer be tolerated morally, but furthermore an inexhaustible source of misfortunes, troubles, and concerns of all kinds for the peoples whom it affects; that, moreover, experience has sufficiently proven that wherever slavery persists, only material development can take place, and that it implies contempt for the true principles of social morality;

By all these causes, etc.

FIRST ARTICLE. Slavery is abolished in all French overseas possessions.All the inhabitants of the French colonies, without distinction of color, are declared free and equal in rights.38

ART. 2.They therefore enjoy all family, civil and political rights, in the same way as other French citizens, in accordance with the law.

ART. 3.The nature and the quota of the wages between the laborers39 and the landowners will be regulated by the government of the metropole.

ART. 4 There will be created, in all the communes of the different French colonies, free schools for the civil and religious instruction of the laborers. This instruction will be compulsory for all those who have not reached the age of 21.40

ART. 5. A special code called the code of culture will regulate all that concerns the details and the execution of this law.

ART. 6. All laws and ordinances, all regulations whatever, which relate to slavery, are from now on and remain annulled and abrogated.

This law is but a law of principles; and in this respect it seems to us to establish, in a clear and precise manner, the bases on which the regulatory code of the colonies will need to rest. The six articles that precede are, in a way, only the social charter promulgated in the colonies by the French government. If we do not enter into the examination of the various questions which the establishment of these new principles may raise, our readers will find the reasons for this silence in the article that follows this one, entitled: Inquiry into the colonies.

We will explain ourselves here on only one point, that of the indemnity that some want to grant and that others refuse to the owners of slaves. We have said nothing about it in the law constituting the social state of the colonies, and here is why:

Between the master and the slave there can be no question of indemnity.41 If one absolutely wanted to establish one, it would be the master who would owe it to the slave, as reparation for the physical and moral violence he has exercised against him.42

The principle of indemnity can only be debated between French society and the colonial landowners. Let us prove that if France granted an indemnity, it would be, on its part, a pure act of liberality, from which, consequently, it would do well to abstain.

Freedom is neither sold nor acquired. It exists forever, everywhere, and for everyone. One no more loses it under the whip of a master than one buys it for cold cash; and this way of acquiring it strikes more at its principle than the material violence that causes it to be lost, in fact, because this, at least, leaves the right intact. The word indemnity is, accordingly, the one which we have most carefully banished from a bill of principles on the abolition of slavery.43

This law is therefore not a dispossession, an expropriation, for reasons of public utility; on the contrary, it is the negation of the state of property, to which it puts an end. It is the reestablishment of rights, a real restoration44 this time: in this respect, the indemnity would be immoral. Consider it from a purely material point of view; the colonists would ask France for an indemnity, founded on what? on the actual loss they incur; what is it that they are losing? the purchase price and the fruit of slave labor? Neither; even in the hypothesis most favorable to the slave owners, the purchase price must be put out of the question for the greatest number, since the slave trade has been abolished for a long time, and that it would be unreasonable to found the demand for justice upon the violation of the law. Moreover, the purchase price of a slave is nothing more than a kind of import duty paid in order to be able to take advantage of the labor of the imported commodity.45 This work is the one and only profit generator of the masters. One should not quantify the particular industry of each slave because under this mode it is exerted too narrowly, too restricted; because intelligence, dulled by servitude, and the ignorance which is its necessary consequence, is without force, without guide, without direction, and because the small savings acquired by the slave are often discarded to him by the master.46 But let us say in passing that this industry, besides the work in the fields, will certainly be one of the means of prosperity of the colonies when it is practiced by free hands and directed by cultivated intelligences.

The master therefore derives only one profit, either from the slave whom he buys, or from the one who is born on his property: labor; and this profit imposes on him a fairly large number of expenses: food, clothing, care of every kind for the preservation of his slaves.

Well, the colonies are constituted in such a way that the masters, whatever their rights may be, cannot dispense with having their former slaves work the land, and that these, upon becoming free, will no less be laborers. The law changes, but the fact will not, the master loses nothing; what the labor of his former slaves cost him in overhead will be replaced by the wages he will give to them as free laborers. Let him not come and say that the slave we removed from under his dominion cost him 1500 and 2000 francs; for he has paid this price and other expenses to profit from a labor that he may always obtain from the will of the worker. Wages replace a great number of cares and expenses, and if, all things considered, there is an increase, that is the fate of all modern industries.

Who does not see now that by compensating the former owners, the state would use 200 million to repair a chimerical evil. We have tried to leave the principles aside for a moment, but if it were true that the dispossession of the master were for him a material loss of money, that would not give him any more right to be compensated; because there is no right against rights..

One will object, as a delegate in the tribune already has: “The blacks who have become free will no longer work, the landowners will lose, the blacks will gain nothing, the colonies will perish; all this with no advantage to anyone.” Error! societies do not perish; they transform; blacks will work as laborers, and for two reasons: so as not to starve, and in the hopes of obtaining a piece of land. They will work better than before, and their crops, improved in the interest of the landowners, would enable the farmers and workmen to successfully practice the exercise of their industrial imaginations. Observe, moreover, that in all that relates to the colonies, we always ask for an arbiter, France. We conceive nothing without this moderating power; for, indeed, we do not dispute the difficulties which the transition from the old to the new state produced by the abolition of slavery may present; but that is no reason to adjourn the question indefinitely.47

With the help of the French government, the colonies can reform themselves and live without harm to any portion of their inhabitants. Without this intervention, they will certainly not perish as human societies, but they will perish as European societies. There would come a day when an inevitable, terrible struggle would begin, and where force would determine the law. One must not think that, in closing one's eyes, that which offends the gaze disappears, and that facts cease to exist simply because one does not speak of them. The intermediary race of the colonies is the necessary link between the old and the new order, the keystone of the new social edifice.48 Building on a legal basis, reforming without violence, repairing without damage, such is our aim. It can be accomplished under the patronage of France, and what's more, it can only be accomplished with the aid of France.