12.3: "Equality"

Of the three elements of the Revolutionary motto, “equality” was in some ways the most fraught with implications. All of the members of the National Assembly were men. Almost all were Catholic, a few were Protestants, but none were Jews. Despite the existence of a large population of free blacks and mixed-race inhabitants of the French colonies (especially in the Caribbean), all members of the assembly were white. The initial claim that all citizens ought to be equal before the law seemed straightforward enough until the Assembly had to decide if that equality extended beyond property-owning male Catholics.

Some early Revolutionaries had spoken in favor of extending rights to Protestants. However, few had spoken on behalf of France’s Jewish minority. Despite misgivings from Catholic conservatives in the Assembly, in 1789, Protestants saw their rights recognized, partially because of their existing political rights in parts of Southern France. The idea of legal equality for Jews was practically unthinkable before the Revolution. As the logic of equality gained momentum, French Jews obtained their rights as French citizens in September of 1791.

The members of the Assembly concluded that religious faith was essentially a private matter that did not directly impact one’s ability to exercise political rights. Having already broken with the Catholic church - and seized much of its property - the Assembly now created a momentus precedent for religious tolerance. Religion was officially stripped of its political valence for the first time in European history. This concept went beyond a “separation of church and state”. Now, religious belief was irrelevant to political loyalty and public conduct.

The Assembly showed little interest in extending any form of political rights to the blacks and mixed-race peoples of the French colonies. Several members of the Assembly argued that slavery should be abolished, but they were in the minority. France’s Caribbean colonies, especially the sugar-producing plantation colony of St. Domingue (present-day Haiti), produced enormous wealth for the French state, numerous slave-based plantation owners, and French business partners. Thus, even those in favor of major reforms in France often balked at the idea of meddling with the wealth of the slave economies of the Caribbean. Once again, however, the logic of equality worked inexorably to upset centuries-old political hierarchies. Upon hearing of events in France, free blacks and mixed-race inhabitants of the colonies swiftly petitioned to have their own rights recognized. In addition, the slaves of St. Domingue (who comprised approximately 90% of the population) learned of the Revolution and of its egalitarian promise.

As a result, in the summer of 1791, a slave uprising in St. Domingue occurred. The Assembly desperately hoped to win over the colony's free people of color to fight alongside white plantation owners to maintain control. Between 1791-1804, the rebellion in St. Domingue saw French authority destroyed, plantations overrun, and hundreds of thousands of slaves seizing their freedom. Having already lost control, the Assembly finally voted to abolish slavery entirely in February 1794. Thus, unlike the cases of Protestant and Jewish enfranchisement, racial equality was only “granted” by the Assembly because it could not be maintained by force.

Figure 12.3.1: The slave rebellion in St. Domingue, soon to be the nation of Haiti, was led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave himself.

Missing from the emancipatory logic entirely were women. There were no debates on the floor of the Assembly having to do with women’s rights. French men simply took it for granted that women were incapable of exercising political independence. Some women both in France and abroad forcefully drove home the implication of the Revolution’s promise of “equality.” Playwright Olympe de Gouges issued a Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791) in parallel to the Assembly’s 1789 Rights of Man and Citizen. In England, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the founding texts of modern feminism, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), which claimed that the liberation of women would play a key role in the disintegration of unwarranted social and political hierarchy for all.

Unfortunately, neither work inspired sympathy among the vast majority of the male population of France (or Britain). As the Revolution grew more radical, the Assembly members grew even more hostile to the demand for rights for women. Eventually, De Gouges was executed on orders from the Assembly as a “counter-Revolutionary.” Political women's clubs that had sprung up since 1789 were shut down. Indeed, although some political rights were offered in 1848, full women's suffrage would not occur until 1944.