Port-au-Prince. The decree instituting the Council of State is dated from Port-Républicain.

The President thought and felt that the burden of the dictatorship was far too heavy for him alone; he conceived the idea of having it shared with him by a Council of State that would have among its powers the right to legislate, while the initiative of laws was reserved to the President of Haiti alone. The secretaries of state agreed in declaring that the Constitution of 1843 was only suspended because of the grave events through which the country was passing, and that it would be revised when better times came. They therefore drew up in council the decree concerning the Council of State, had it signed by Guerrier in one of his moments of calm, and signed it themselves on 29 November 1844.