White colonists argued that even free-colored rights would shatter slave obedience

Evidence

One writer worried that even if slavery were preserved, granting rights to free people of African descent would make them the “kings of the colonies,” as they would transform themselves into a majority by emancipating their own slaves and liberating those owned by whites. Moreau insisted that any intervention by the National Assembly into the status of free-coloreds would undermine the power of masters over their slaves. “If our slaves suspect that there is a power that can influence their condition, independently of the will of their masters,” wrote Moreau, they would see that they were no longer in a state of “absolute dependence” on the whites. Once this had happened, it would be impossible for “France to preserve its colonies.” The representatives in the National Assembly had only one choice: to leave the power of masters intact by allowing them complete legal autonomy. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 290