Martinique. Félix Poisson recalls Dessalines lamenting that he could not aid its people.

“So J.-J. Dessalines understood it in proclaiming national independence; I call to witness his immortal proclamation, in which he laments that he cannot fly to the aid of the unhappy Martinicans. “Faithful executors of that policy, the framers of the constitutions of 1806 and 1816 did not alter it by selfishness and wounding preferences.

“Haiti, free and independent through an energy without equal in the registers of memorable deeds, Haiti is the holy land of the African race. The Constitution, gift of the regeneration, star of truth and justice, cannot, without incurring universal reprobation and the anathema of the country, without stirring the ashes of those astonishing actors, those actors on the tragic and political stage of Haiti, cannot, I say, refuse to shine for naturalized Black and yellow men. At the feast of frank fellowship we cannot in conscience, gentlemen, regard these other selves of ours as the planters at their tables regarded their overseers.

“Finally, plainly convinced that equality of burdens is inherent in equality of rights, and that to be born in one country rather than in another is an event independent of all human will, I vote against this provision of the bases tending to exclude the naturalized from the presidency.”

Among the members of the Constituent Assembly there were two, Franklin, born in France, and St-Amand, born in the French Windward Islands; they were naturalized men. Not wishing to speak themselves on the question of excluding Haitians of their category from the presidency, they had asked the deputy Félix Poisson, a Haitian by birth, to be their spokesman, after preparing for him the speech we have just reproduced.