Republic of Hayti., July 19, 1876, in the seventy-third year of independence

Republic of Hayti.

Liberty—Equality—Fraternity.

address to the people and the army.

Boisrond Canal, President of Hayti.

Fellow-Citizens: Engrave upon your memory the unfortunate date of the 20th of May, 1874; what happened on that day of sorrow will serve as a lesson for the future!

The infamous coup d’état, long premeditated by persons struck with universal reprobation, received its consummation, and as the fatal result, a man whose dire celebrity was not unknown to any, ascended the presidential seat on the 11th of Jane.

This man’s twenty-two months’ administration, twenty-two months of a burdensome oppression stained at nearly each step with filthiness and blood, have removed from us all the liberties which we had conquered during thirty years of trials and struggles. They have exhausted the most vital forces of the nation and plunged our miserable country iu such a deplorable situation that superhuman efforts only can save it.

The suspension of the laws, the dissolution of the legislative body, our constitution torn in fragments and cast to the wind, accusations in horror, dread imposed on all by shootings and proscriptions unparalleled in our history, unjust duties suppressing production, illegal additional taxes bearing with all their weight on the laboring classes, all the public services suffering, immoral loans negotiated on all sides, our agriculture, our commerce panting, threatened by imminent ruin; such is the doleful and, in the mean while, the incomplete history of these last two years.

A revolution only could cast off the danger and close the pit opened beneath our feet.

These appeals to arms, too often reiterated among us, become periodical, as it can be said, are fatal and even mortal for the young nations; but do they not become a necessity when all the principles of public order are forgotten, all liberties suppressed, all laws violated, when the reign of good pleasure is made to take the place of lawful rule, and when the press and the tribune, those mighty organs of the people, dare not be heard in vindication of the most solemn rights?

Forty days were sufficient to sweep from the country’s soil this pretended colossus and the multitude of persons in his service and pay.

The provisional government that sprang up from this revolution has ended its glorious mandate, and the National Assembly, freely chosen by the people, has just called me to direct for four years the destinies of the country.

Haytians, all my brethren and friends: I am proud of the suffrages of that grand assembly, proud of the work of reparation which is intrusted to me, without dissimulating the difficulties of the task which it imposes upon me.

To substitute the rule of laws for that of arbitrary will; to place again upon its pedestal the constitution of 1867; to re-organize, within the limits of our needs and our financial resources, our army and our navy; to make our agriculture and commerce to flourish; to modify our custom-house duties; to revive the sources of public fortune; to create new ones; to introduce order, honesty, and a strict economy in the management of our affairs; to lift up our credit and prestige abroad; to put upon an honorable and satisfactory basis our relations with the different civilized powers of the globe; to spread education among the people; to moralize the masses; to repair, in line, the two years’ ruins of the fallen government: these are the things that the National Assembly demands me to undertake in conferring upon me the office of President of the republic. What an immense task; but also what glory attached to the fulfillment even of a part of this gigantic enterprise. The intelligence, activity, and perseverance of a single person are not sufficient in this supreme moment; I would infallibly fail if I were not powerfully seconded and sustained. Hence I make appeal to all for their aid. I call to my support all the intelligence, all the capacity, all the light, all the men of feeling and heart, and showing the naked wounds of the country, struggling in the convulsions of death, I say to them, let us unite and save our common mother.

Haytians, my brethren and friends, you will not be deaf to my voice.

In the fulfillment of my task, I cannot fail to count, in a particular manner, upon the mighty and efficacious assistance of the great bodies of state. They will aid me by their counsel, by their experience; and from the similarity of our views, of our ideas and sentiments, will come forth the welfare of our most unfortunate country.

According to the terms of the constitution and of the decree of the national assembly, I will descend from the presidential seat on the 15th of May, 1880.

In transmitting the authority to him who shall be freely chosen without suggestion by the legislative body, I will feel even happy if order and public peace shall have been definitely acclimated in our country, too often disturbed by internal dissensions. I will feel very proud if a race of men, of which the political aptitudes are contested, presents to the whole world the spectacle of a free people understanding its rights and duties, loving and honoring labor, and directing all its aspiration toward progress. I will think myself to have merited the national acknowledgment, if, instead of the paralyzed body that is remitted to me, I hand it over a nation with all the elements of a strong vitality.

Fellow-citizens, such is the object to which I aspire and toward which all my efforts shall tend.

Permit me to flatter myself that they will be crowned with success, and that the day when I shall become one of the humble citizens of Hayti, your loyal representatives, among whom the noblest sentiments of justice and impartiality always shine forth, will openly declare in your name that, during the exercise of ray mandate, I fulfilled and executed in the measure of possibility the vast programme of ameliorations demanded by the country. The highest degree of satisfaction which a public servant can aim at in his ambition, is that of conquering the approbation of his constituents.

I earnestly desire this glorious title.

Long live the republic; long live the constitution; long live the union of the Haytian family.