I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in Saint-Domingue. I work to bring them into existence. Unite yourselves to us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.
The king knows with what ardor and perseverance I have at all times been devoted to the cause of liberty and to the principles of humanity, equality and justice.
May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge today, but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.
But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been.
When it shall be known that, at the time which I was accused of wishing to sunder this island from France - my benefactress - I repeated the oath of fidelity to her, I take pleasure in believing that the government I own, and my fellow-citizens, will render me the justice I merit, and that the enemies of my brethren will be reduced to silence.
I will to my dying day oppose, with all the powers and faculties God has given me, all such instruments of slavery on the one hand and villainy on the other as this Writ of Assistance is.
Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.
We can't continue with a justice of vengeance. Peace will require us to accept a certain degree of impunity; it's inevitable.
I want to be indifferent to vengeance. It's degrading. Not having a spirit of vengeance protects me, internally.
Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide.