Mirabeau exposed the logical hypocrisy of colonial representation claims

Evidence

“The free blacks are proprietors and taxpayers, and yet they have not been allowed to vote,” he noted. “And as for the slaves, either they are men or they are not; if the colonists consider them men, let them free them and make them eligible for seats; if the contrary is the case, have we, in apportioning deputies according to the population of France, taken into consideration the number of our horses and mules?” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 262

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SHARE: Mirabeau’s horses-and-mules retort is a devastating one-liner worth sending to anyone who enjoys sharp rhetorical takedowns of democratic hypocrisy.
• XREF: Connects to the puzzle of how universal rights coexisted with colonial slavery, threading toward the eventual slave revolt.

Related

• Mirabeau exposed the colonists’ counting logic as reducing slaves to livestock (similarity 0.91)

Broader Connections

• Colonial policy disputes were really disputes over how race could be known #expands (0.60)