Toussaint Louverture and the 1801 Constitution

Toussaint Louverture and the 1801 Constitution

Claude Moise's Le projet national de Toussaint Louverture et la Constitution de 1801 is rather short yet raises some important questions. Since Toussaint Louverture, by the time he promulgated the 1801 Constitution, was the most powerful person on the island of Hispaniola and therefore needed a constitution to legitimize and protect the administrative structure he headed, one can see the seeds of future Haitian governments in the text and the practice of government. In addition, Toussaint must have seen the importance of establishing a clear government structure for Saint-Domingue as largely autonomous but still attached to the metropole. Such an attachment was likely believed to be necessary given the possible threat of maritime powers such as England, Spain, or the US, not to mention other cultural and economic ties to France that likely weighed in consideration. For Moise, what Toussaint envisioned was comparable to the free state association of Puerto Rico with the United States, although it is possible that if his regime had endured, independence may have become more attractive. 

Unfortunately, Toussaint Louverture's Constitution symbolized the failure to reconcile irreconcilable conflicts of interest. Former slaves who believed liberty and freedom entailed more individual liberties and control of their labor unsurprisingly butted heads with the government and planters (both the colons and the nouveaux libres elites who gained control of estates). The attempts to limit smallholder proprietorship of land and to regulate the movement of ex-slaves through the militarized administrative structure of the administration undoubtedly fueled discontent and continual marronage (vagabondage). Indeed, according to Moise, this is what led to the rebellion associated with Toussaint Louverture's nephew, Moise. Although the author suggests that Moise himself was not directly involved in orchestrating the revolt, his sympathetic words and inaction in suppressing it warranted his punishment by Toussaint Louverture. However, this impasse imperiled the longevity of the type of state envisioned by Toussaint and maintained by his successors in independent Haiti. 

Despite these fundamental contradictions of the social order of the Louverturian regime, independent Haiti endeavored to follow it. Of course, without the whites or colons as an integral part of the imagined Haitian nation. Nonetheless, Henri Christophe's government may be the best indication of what Louverture's vision of Saint Domingue would have looked like had it survived. The survival of large estates, the use of the military to police rural laborers, and the commitment to antislavery, educational reforms, and attempts to inculcate values approved of by the government in the masses certainly resemble the goals of the Louverturian regime. However, would Toussaint have taken the step to declare himself a king in a future Saint Domingue or Haiti had the autonomous relationship with France become more of a burden or threat?

Constitutions et luttes de pouvoir en Haiti

Although we have only read the first time of Claude Moise's Constitutions et luttes de pouvoir en Haiti, it is enough to understand to a greater extent the intermittent political crises that negatively impacted the country from 1804-1915. Viewing the endless battles and conflicts for political power between different branches, clans, and regional elites since the birth of Haitian independence until the US Occupation through the conflict over constitutions to legitimize various regimes illustrates more clearly the impasse the Haitian political system had reached by 1915. Since each constitution was instituted either to deny power to another branch of the elite and legitimize their own seizure of power, there was a constant danger of political intrigue, coups, and revolutions to unseat the incumbent president/Executive and restore governmental legitimacy. Of course, the source of real power in the country was the Executive, and his power came from the military who administered the provinces as commandants. Thus, regardless of any constitutional innovations to protect civil government and individual liberties, all were at risk of arbitrary and despotic presidents (or, in the case of Dessalines, Soulouque, and Christophe, emperors and kings) who had to rely on the military as the main source of authority (as well as preserving public security). 

However, as Moise's masterful study reveals, there were a number of occasions in which branches of the political elite sought to institute a truly liberal, democratic state with more power to civil authorities. The first, the 1843 Constitution, was never truly implemented as Riviere Herard was unseated and the country's elite fell back on Guerrier and Riche to neutralize the threat of the Piquets. Here, unfortunately, Moise's analysis does not extend deeper into exploring how the Piquets themselves wanted to reconstitute the state, but he is certainly correct that most of the Haitian political elite banded together to prevent any real seizure of power from the lower classes. This included military repression, government appointments to Piquet leaders and the return to "presidentialism" to protect public security. After ending the Piquet threat, the political elites, both of the "mulatto" and "noir" branches, proceeded to implement other constitutions, such as that of 1846 and 1867. The Executive branch was severely weakened in the 1870s through the rise of the Liberals and Boyer-Bazelais, who favored a government dominated by the Legislative branch. Nonetheless, their favored constitution and governmental system, designed to weaken the Executive, was impractical as there was no real constitutional solution to conflict between the Executive and Legislative bodies. 

Furthermore, the Liberals, according to Moise, lacked deeper alliances with the real source of power in the country, the military leaders, and were thus severely weakened once the inevitable return of conflict over power returned in 1879 and beyond. Intriguingly, their regime did work well under Saget and Boisrond-Canal, although the exceptional circumstances and character of those men favored the longevity of this inherently unworkable system. By the end of the era of Liberal hegemony, despotic, arbitrary regimes dominated by Presidents like Salomon (who in one letter, compared the demands of political power to African conditions), Hyppolite, and Nord Alexis became the norm. Even with the 1889 Constitution that survived until the US Occupation, each president relied on unconstitutional measures, arbitrary despotism, the military, and sometimes, outright terror, to remain in power or endeavor to control succession. 

Throughout the entire period, the conflict over power and various attempts to legitimize new regimes with legality through new constitutions was usually able to counteract any serious attempts at opening the political system or debate to the lower classes. A few exceptions occurred, however. And it is these exceptions that warrant additional attention, particularly the Piquets (who still await their historian, to paraphrase Moise), cacos, and the urban masses who supported Salnave. La foule was especially relevant during the terror of Soulouque and presumably supported, initially, Soulouque's rise to effective power and self-elevation to Emperor. In addition, the urban masses, such as the women, who rallied behind Salnave, must be analyzed for revealing the political ideology of the lower classes. The cacos in the Nord similarly warrant closer attention, although Moise seems predisposed to discount the idea of any real political debate or ideology motivating their actions in the decades leading to US Occupation. That said, it seems hard to image the cacos of the Nord completely lacking ideas about reform, even if they were doomed to fail. The challenge now is to reconstruct, to whatever extent possible, how the peasants, urban poor, and embryonic working-class envisioned a different political regime in Haiti.