Some historians have denounced this as hypocrisy and “republican racism.” I argue that the Amis' position reflects the logic seen in French Revolution’s infamous divide between “active” and “passive” citizens, which set voting qualifications. Theorists like Sieyès understood that the citizenship of “the people” guaranteed the sovereign legitimacy of the nation. He argued that political participation in France’s island colonies should be based on merit, but he never specified how merit would be determined, allowing the prejudices of class, education, gender, age, and skin tone to fill the void. Saint-Domingue’s election laws, domicile rules, and work regulations excluded most Black people from the colony’s political life. Consequently, few Blacks believed in the promise of equality. But for republican intellectuals and colonial officials, political meritocracy remained self-affirming. The belief allowed them to be “true” to their espoused principles while blaming policy failures on the alleged disabilities and immaturity of the formerly enslaved. These complex permutations on equality suggest why we must rethink carefully how structures of representation align with antiracist practices.
