Ogé delivered his motion to the club Massiac at Paris, asking whether liberty was made for all and how it would be given.
In other words, it was to ask political rights for the Black people as well as for the *mulâtres*, all of them already free. This petition also asked for an improvement in the lot of the enslaved. Let no one henceforth lay it to Raymond and Ogé as a crime that they did not petition at that time for general emancipation. Uncertain of the political emancipation of those who were already free, why should they have complicated the question? If, at that moment when events were carrying away all minds and all hearts were kindling with the noblest sentiments, the colonists had consented to lift from the {{freedmen|*affranchis*: free people of color and free Black people}} the political interdict under which they were placed, what evils they would have spared themselves! There is no doubt that the recognition of the political rights of the men of color would have led gradually to the general emancipation of the enslaved. There is no doubt that liberty would afterward have established itself in the colonies without bathing in floods of blood. Ogé, at least, felt it so. He even made a private approach to the club Massiac, then presided over by M. Galiffet, a *grand planteur* of the environs of Cap. It was on 7 September, before the final drafting of the PETITION OF COMPLAINTS AND GRIEVANCES, that he delivered to the club of the whites the following motion:
Gentlemen,
« A proprietor of estates in Saint-Domingue, in the dependency of Cap, and a native of the same island, I come to beg the Assembly to admit me to its deliberations; I have no other aim than to join with it in the preservation of our properties and in warding off the disasters that threaten us. »
After a few words on commerce, Ogé continues: « To bring about this happy revolution, the torch of reason fell short; the torch of liberty had to come and mingle its brightness with the gentleness of the other, and their union had to produce a uniform, ardent and pure light which, by enlightening minds, could kindle hearts. But, Gentlemen, this word liberty, which no one pronounces without enthusiasm, this word which carries with it the idea of happiness, if only because it seems to make us forget the evils from which we have suffered for centuries; this liberty, the greatest and the first of goods, is it made for all men? I believe it is. Must it be given to all men? I believe so still. But how must it be given? What must be the times and the conditions of it? That, for us, Gentlemen, is the greatest and most important of questions; it concerns America, Africa, France, the whole of Europe; and it is chiefly this object that has determined me, Gentlemen, to beg you to be so good as to hear me. If the promptest and most effective measures are not taken; if firmness, courage and constancy do not arm us all; if we do not gather into one bundle all our lights, all our means, all our efforts; if we slumber for an instant at the edge of the abyss, let us tremble at our awakening! Behold the blood flowing! Behold our lands invaded, the products of our industry laid waste, our hearths set on fire! Behold our neighbors, our friends, our brothers, our children butchered and mutilated! Behold the enslaved man raising the standard of revolt: the islands are only one vast and fatal conflagration, commerce is annihilated, France receives a mortal wound, and a multitude of honest citizens are impoverished, ruined. We lose everything! But, Gentlemen, it is time to forestall the disaster (1). »