e sacred word 'rights' would be blasphemy against
reason."[5]

When the question was reopened on July 3, Mirabeau took the lead in
the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and
arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only
about one half the free population, since the whole body of free
blacks and mulattoes had been excluded from suffrage. The spokesman of
the colonial deputation was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial
proprietor residing in Paris, from the beginning a leader in the
movement for colonial representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend
the principle of slave representation. He based his claim for the
admission of eighteen or twenty delegates on the wealth and commercial
importance of the colony. His weak point was the exclusion of free
tax-paying mulattoes from the electoral assemblies. He said that since
the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous
to give them any influence, an argument which made a bad impression on
the Assembly. The debate was finished the next day, and the number of
deputies was fixed by a compromise at six. The chief importance of
this discussion was the prominence which it gave to two questions that
the colonial deputies were anxious to keep smothered--slavery and the
civil status of the free Negroes. During the debate on June 27 the
Duke de la Rochefoucauld found opportunity to present the aims of the
Society of Friends of the Blacks, and requested the future
consideration of the problem of emancipation. Remarks by other
deputies to the effect that something be done to improve the condition
of slaves received hearty applause.

The French Revolution plunged the island into a state of chaos. The
vast majority of the population of the western colony were slaves, and
the number of free blacks and mulattoes were nearly equal to the
number of whites. "The news of the Revolution had encouraged each
class of the colonial population to expect the realization of its
peculiar hopes. The planters desired freer access to the markets of
the world, the poor whites hoped for the advantages that their richer
neighbors alone enjoyed, the free blacks and mulattoes for civil
equality; even the slaves cherished hopes of liberty."[6] The clash of
interests brought on civil war in Santo Domingo. The situation here,
the richest of the sugar colonies, was serious; it soon received
special attention from the home government. A co