14 Charles Kuhlmann 



mittee on reports.^ It was imperative for the opponents of the 

 Amis des noirs that the subject of slavery and the slave trade 

 should never be discussed in the assembly as an independent 

 question, for in that case there could be but one issue, the Amis 

 des noirs would have had the best of the argument, and all France 

 would soon have learned that the assembly had either sacrificed 

 the colonies and many home interests connected with them or 

 that it had formally contradicted one of its own most funda- 

 mental principles. The right foresaw this dilemma and was 

 eager to drive the assembly upon one or the other of its horns. 

 Maury said triumphantly, "I shall force you to decree the free- 

 dom of the negroes ; it is a necessary consequence of your prin- 

 ciples. Commerce will be ruined, bankruptcy will follow, and 

 you will all be lost."- The right of the assembly and the Amis 

 des noirs thus found themselves fighting for the same object, 

 namely, to bring about a thorough discussion of these questions. 

 But they were in the minority and outmaneuvered at the same 

 time. Alexander Lameth interrupted Gregoire in his reading 

 and moved that the matter be referred to a special committee on 

 colonies. In the debate which followed upon this motion his 

 party was victorious. Lameth, Barnave, and a number of the 

 colonial deputies, who of course favored the plan, were appointed 

 on the committee.^ On March 8, Barnave, as chairman of the 

 committee, reported a plan which left the colonies under the 

 existing regime until they themselves should undertake to change 

 it, thus adopting the essential point in the proposition De I'Aunay 

 had made at the Jacobins.* No sooner had he concluded than 

 came reiterated calls of "question ! question !" Mirabeau, Petion, 

 Gregoire, who rushed to the tribune, failed to obtain the floor ; 

 the discussion was "closed" before it had been opened, and Bar- 

 nave's decree passed.'^ It was a typical Jacobin maneuver, later 



' Correspondance des dkpidh du departement d' Angers, IV, 225-28, also 

 Correspondance de Bretagne, supplejiient to no. Ill, 1790. 



^Duquesnoy.ybz^rwa/, II, bulletin of March 8, 1790. 



•"See Correspondance des diputt's du dtparimetit d' Angers, IV, 225-28. 

 Also Correspondance de Bretagne, supplement to no. Ill, 1790. 



*Barnave's report with his introductory speech is given in the CoiTe- 

 spondance des deputes . . . d' Anjoii, IV, 263-64. 



' Ihdletin de Brest, volume for 1790, no. 29. 



" 242 • 



