The 1848 Revolution in France: An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on April 27, 1848
THE 1848 REVOLUTION IN FRANCE: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED
IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, ON 27 APRIL 1848
North Star, 12 May 1848.
Fragmentary news of revolution in France began to reach the United States in
the spring of 1848. When reports that the French had overthrown their king
and created a Second Republic became confirmed, celebrations were held in
many American cities. Typical of these observances was the one held in
Rochester, New York, on 8 May 1848. Eleven days earlier, on 27 April, the
mayor, several aldermen, and many other prominent citizens of Rochester had
gathered at the Court House to make arrangements for that celebration.
Douglass attended the preliminary meeting and was called upon to address
those present on his views concerning recent events in France. Rochester
Daily American, 28 April, 9 May 1848.
Mr. FREDERICK DOUGLASS was called upon for a speech, to which he
assented, and spoke as follows: It was quite unexpected by me that I should
have been called upon to speak here this evening, especially at so early a
stage of the meeting. I hoped to be allowed to remain in silence, and hear
others present express their feelings freely on this subject. But it might be
well supposed that on such a theme as this, I would have a word to say.
I am a Democrat in the largest sense of the word—a friend of equal
rights, and I believe that I live in a nation which has nothing to do whatever
with the graduation of human rights. I am a friend not only to
Democracy—radical Democracy—but I deeply sympathise in this grand
movement resulting from the declaration of France to become a republic.1What began in Paris on 22 February 1848 as a demonstration to protest the banning of a huge banquet in support of political reform turned into three days of rioting and barricade fighting that ended with the abdication and flight of King Louis Philippe (1773-1850). Efforts by monarchists to establish a regency for Louis Philippe's grandson collapsed when an armed mob forced the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. After rejecting proposals for a national plebiscite, the new provisional government on 26 February declared: “In the name of the French people, monarchy, under every form, is abolished without possibility of return." G. Lowes Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction in Modern France (London, 1938), 153-54; William Langer, Political and Social Upheaval, 1832-1852 (New York, 1969), 319-34. I
regard France as something more than a republic, as we are accustomed to
understand it, and to see in the example of other republics.
I am glad that the people here assembled appear to have seen more in
the present position of France, than the mere establishment of a republic. I
see on all sides here the working-men and mechanics of Rochester. Their
hearts vibrate in sympathy with the grand movement of France. And why?
Because she is aiming not only to establish a government of equality for
herself, but takes into view the rights of laboring men, as well as those of
other men.2Faced with persistent demands for full employment and government guarantees of the “right to work," the provisional government on 26 February 1848 created a system of “national workshops" in Paris and two days later delegated authority over a “workers' Parliament" that convened in the Luxembourg Palace to socialist reformer Louis Blanc. Workers admitted to the national workshops were paid two francs daily when employed and half that amount when out of work. During their four-month existence, the workshops provided jobs for only a tenth of the more than one hundred thousand workers enrolled. After the abortive uprising of 15 May, when the attempt to proclaim a new provisional government was crushed, the government began to dismantle the workshops. Blanc’s 200-member Luxembourg Commission, established to advise the Constituent Assembly on how to relieve the acute labor problem in France, lacked the authority to implement any of its proposals. Persuaded of the commission's powerlessness, Blanc resigned and the commission held no more sessions after 15 May, though many of its delegates attempted to meet the mounting opposition to revolutionary change by organizing Paris workers and revitalizing the national workshops. Langer, Political and Social Upheaval, 334, 347-48; Donald C. McKay, The National Workshops: A Study in the French Revolution of 1848 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965); Dickinson, Revolution and Reaction, 154. Because, with a glorious consistency, which puts our own
country to the blush—and I ask no allowance in making this remark,
because justice comes into court with her hat on, and makes no apology—I
say, if anything can put our republic to the blush, it is that glorious consis-
tency with which the Provisional Government of France has made and set
in operation measures which must bring about the entire overthrow of
Slavery in all her dominions.3On 4 March 1848, the provisional government issued a decree establishing a commission headed by abolitionist Victor Schoelcher to prepare “as quickly as possible" an act for the immediate emancipation of the quarter million slaves in French colonies. On 27 April, the government approved a decree abolishing slavery in all French possessions to take effect two months after its publication in the colonies. FDP, 28 April, 2 June 1848; BFASR, ser. 2, 3: 60-61, 76-77 (1 April, 1 May 1848); Herbert Ingram Priestley, France Overseas: A Study of Modern Imperialism (New York, 1938), 68-69.
The other day, my heart was thrilled when I saw, in reading the public
papers, an address delivered by one of the members of the Provisional
Government, to a party of mulattoes and negroes who had met to express
their sympathies with the republican government.4On 9 March 1848, a delegation of Parisian Negroes and mulattoes visited the provisional government to express their “sentiments of gratitude" for the steps recently taken to abolish slavery in the colonies. They were received by Justice Minister Adolphe Cremieux (1796-1880), a lawyer, political moderate, former monarchist, and later Bonapanist, who had been openly identified with abolitionism since delivering an address at the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840. Cremieux assured the Paris delegation that “[t]he new Republic will accomplish what the Republic in 1792 proclaimed. You shall again become free, there shall no longer be a slave on the soil of liberty. In our colonies as well as in continental France, every man who inhabits this land shall be free.” S. Posener, Adolphe Cremieux: A Biography (1933; Philadelphia, 1941), 106-07, 144-67; Shelby T. McCloy, The Negro in France (Lexington, Ky., 1961), 143-46; BFASR, ser. 2, 3: 60-61 (1 April 1848). What language do you
suppose the Provisional Government held towards those negroes (niggers)
and mulattoes? It was this: “Citizens, friends, brothers!” “Brothers!” Sir,
without this act on the part of the Provisional Government, her democracy
or her revolution would have been all a sham. He [Douglass] hoped that the
Committee appointed to draft resolutions would bear this in mind.5The Rochester mass meeting of 8 May 1848 adopted a resolution praising French emancipation efforts: “Resolved, That by decreeing the abolition of Negro Slavery, France has covered herself with higher honors than war could give. The triumph of justice over wrong is the greatest which it is permitted to men or nations to achieve." Rochester Daily American, 9 May 1848.