If they are detained in prison, it is only because you yourselves are imprisoned here in the discharge of your responsible duties.

When your imprisonment comes to an end, theirs comes to an end also.

The Law will step in and take them from your clutch.

Better, then, in advance, by a proper and generous resolution, to order their discharge, so that the Law will not be compelled to do what you fail to do.

To affirm the aptitude of the black race for civilization and self-government, by your eloquence and your high morality you have made free four millions of blacks in the United States.

In defending our independence on two solemn occasions, you have protected and defended something more august even than the liberty of the blacks in America.

It is the dignity of a black people seeking to place itself, by its own efforts, at the banquet of the civilized world.

In the name of the Haytian people, we pray you to accept, as a feeble testimony of its gratitude, this medal, which will perpetuate in ages to come the recollection of the services which you have rendered to us as citizens of the world…

I am only one of many who have labored for the enfranchisement of the African race, and who yet stand ready to serve at all times the sacred cause; nor have I done anything except in the simple discharge of duty.

In cultivating a sentiment of nationality, you will naturally insist upon that equality among nations which is your right.

In the presence of International Law all nations are equal.

As well deprive a citizen of equality before the law as deprive a nation.

You will also insist upon that Christian rule, as applicable to nations as to individuals, of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Following it always in your own conduct, and expecting others to follow it towards you, will you ever forget that sentiment of Humanity by which all men are one, with common title, with common right?

With education for the people, and with peace, foreign and domestic, especially everywhere on the island, the independence of Hayti will be placed beyond the assaults of force or the intrigues of designing men, besides being an…

To this I am constrained by the spirit, if not by the letter of the Constitution, which forbids any person in my situation from accepting any present of any kind whatever from a foreign State.

In arriving at this conclusion I have been governed by that same sense of duty which on the occasions to which you refer made me your advocate, and which with me is a supreme power.

I doubt if I can add materially to the argument which you have already received, but, with your permission, I ask attention to the point that equality is not found in equivalents.

You cannot give the colored child any equivalent for equality.

Knowing our honored guest by his life, I am sure that to him war is detestable, while Republican Government is his aspiration for France.

Were all Frenchmen of his mind, the deadly war-fever would disappear, and the Republic would be established on a foundation not to be shaken; and then would France rise to glories which she has never before reached.

Plainly, at this epoch of civilization, there are two Great Commandments which this powerful nation cannot disobey with impunity.

The first is Peace; and the second, which is like unto the first, is the Republic.

But the Republic is Peace,--most unlike the Empire, which was always war in disguise.

Help for the suffering is the highest eloquence.