Sonthonax saw revolutionary rights claims as hollow in a slave colony

Evidence

Sonthonax, more strident and combative than Polverel, was soon embroiled in conflict in Le Cap. When a group of whites broke into a prison and massacred whites and slave insurgents locked up there, he blamed the attack on a political group in Le Cap and disbanded it. When Polverel criticized his actions, Sonthonax retorted: “You accuse me of having violated in this the rights of man and citizen, as if the rights of men could be claimed in a land of slavery.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 502

Categorization

• QUESTION: This suggests Sonthonax understood that the Declaration of Rights could not survive contact with slavery — did this reasoning lead directly toward his gradual move to emancipation?
• DEFINE: A compact statement of the paradox that Republican universalism could not be claimed in a land of slavery.
• DEEPTHINKING: This single line captures the structural contradiction of the French Revolution exporting rights to a slave colony - a dense point about the incompatibility of republicanism and slavery that animates the rest of the story.