fruits of the happy regeneration which is now going on, it has never intended to include them in the Constitution which it has decreed for the Realm, and to subject them to laws which might be incompatible with their local and particular requirements and customs.

The General Assembly, therefore, authorized the Colonies, through their deputies, "to make known their wishes in regard to the Constitution, the legislation, and the administration which would be best adapted to their needs," and permitted them to elect Local Assemblies whose powers should be on this basis of relationship. A Colonial Committee of twelve members was named, charged with drawing up a plan for a Constitution which should serve as a model for all the Colonial Constitutions, but which should be merely for the guidance of the Colonial Assemblies, they having full permission either to use it only in part or not to use it at all, as they saw fit. The committee reported a guide-plan as directed, and by order of the Constituent Assembly it was sent to the Colonies on June 15, 1791.

Meantime, in May, 1791, political rights as citizens had been granted by the Constituent Assembly to free negroes, and the negroes in the West Indian Colonies had become excited by the prospect of freedom held out to them by the speeches of the Revolutionary radicals and by the actions and publications of the French Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Before the permission had arrived from France to form Colonial Assemblies on the new basis, they had been formed by the white populations, in the interest of the whites; and an organization was immediately formed among the white populations to start a reactionary movement which would make the Colonies independent of France and thus prevent the abolition of slavery, on which institution they felt the prosperity of both the white and the black population

depended. By the time the too liberal terms of relationship offered by the French National Assembly were transmitted to the West Indian Colonies, these Colonies were not only in a state of organized rebellion against France, but in a state of civil war between the whites and the negroes.

In the Constitution of September, 1791, it was provided that:

The Colonies and French possessions of Asia, Africa, and America, although they form a part of the French Empire, are not comprised in the present Constitution.

This Constitution fixed the number of representatives at 745, "independently of those which may be allowed to the Colonies." To the General Assembly of France was reserved the decision of questions relative “to the exterior régime of the Colonies, to the organization of the courts, to the defence of French interests, and to the carrying out of engagements between the French traders and planters and the natives "-all other matters being left to be finally determined by the Colonies themselves.

The abolition of slavery throughout France and all its dependencies by yote of the Convention, in 1794, removed the last obstacle to the universal application of the principle of equality between individuals, and accordingly, in order both to make the application of the principle universal and to put an end to all the hopes of the planters that a separation of the Colonies from France might be brought about, the political organism composed of France and its dependencies was declared to be a Unitary State by the Convention, in the Constitution of 1795, in the following language:

The French Colonies are integral parts of the Republic and are subject to the same constitutional law. . They shall be divided into Départements.

All laws enacted under this Constitution were to be ipso facto applicable, without distinction, to the Colonies then belonging to France. Some Colonies, theretofore separate, were united so as to form a single Département; but San Domingo, where the race war between the whites and the blacks was raging most fiercely, and where the local organization was most complete, was divided into several Départements.

In 1798, by statute, this principle of uniformity was extended so as to assimilate the colonial Départements to the domestic Départements in all matters of finance and taxation, and the system of elective judges and jury trial in force in France was extended to the Colonies.

During this period of uniformity and assimilation, the Colonies were proportionally represented in the Assemblies of France.

Speaking of the effect of this policy, M. Arthur Girault, in his work, Les Principes de Colonisation et de Législation Coloniale, published in 1895, says:

In spite of this, the Colonies made lively opposition to all the measures which the Assemblies adopted in relation to them. They accepted the advantages of assimilation, but they were unwilling to submit to its burdens, being of a mind to govern themselves. . . In fact, moreover, our Colonies, altogether too far distant for the Revolutionary Government to be able to make its will respected among them, passed through a period of trouble and confusion. Some, like Martinique, were in the hands of the English. San Domingo was devastated by a frightful civil war. Toussaint l'Ouverture and Victor Hugues did as they pleased there. In the Colony of Réunion, the Colonial Assembly governed the island according to its whim. It was anarchy.

With the consulate of Napoleon came the reaction against the Revolutionary sentiments, and the political

organism composed of France and its dependencies was again recognized as an Empire. The Constitution of 1800 provided that:

The régime of the French Colonies shall be determined by special laws.

Two years later, the Legislature delegated to Napoleon its power over the Colonies for ten years by an Act which provided that:

All previous laws to the contrary notwithstanding, the régime of the Colonies is submitted, for ten years, to the regulations which shall be made by the Government.

The moral obligation of France to exercise its functions towards these dependencies in an expert manner, and the federal nature of the Empire composed of France and its dependencies, was immediately recognized by Napoleon, by the establishment of a Colonial Council at Paris, composed in part of persons appointed by the French Government and in part by persons elected by the appointed Legislatures of the dependencies. France was convinced, for all time, that popular government of aggregations of communities was limited to those which are contiguous and homogeneous, and from that time forward never departed from the proposition that the dependencies were entitled to a special and particular administration differing from that of France.

The Constitution of 1814 provided that: "The Colonies shall be ruled by particular laws or regulations ”—the word laws (lois) referring to the action of the Parliament, and the word regulations (réglements) to the action of the Executive. The administration of the dependencies, under this Constitution, drifted inevitably into the hands of the Executive, and during the period from 1814 to

1830, a great number of careful and scientific regulations for the Colonies were made by royal ordinances. In 1830, the jealousy felt by the Legislature of the Executive, due to the claims of arbitrary power in France made by Louis XVIII. and Charles X., led to a return to administration of the dependencies by the French Parliament. In the Constitution of 1830, the words. "and regulations" were omitted, so that the provision read: "The Colonies shall be governed by particular laws."

By the Constitution of 1848, it was provided:

The territory of Algeria and the Colonies is declared French territory, and shall be ruled by particular laws until a special law places it under the régime of the present Constitution.

In the Constitution of 1852, the provision was: "The Senate shall rule the Constitution of Algeria and the Colonies by sénatus-consultes"-that is, by action taken by the Senate alone as a deliberative and legislative body.

The constitutional laws of France which since 1875 have formed its Constitution do not specifically cover the case of the dependencies, and the sénatus-consultes made under the provisions of the Constitution of 1852 are still considered to be in force, though not to the extent of preventing the operation of the general rule that a law of Parliament controls every other law or regulation.

The Colonies of France remained under the direction of the Minister for the Marine until 1881. In that year, the administration of the Colonies was committed to the Minister for Commerce, and placed in the special charge of an Under-Secretary for the Colonies. A little later, the administration was again attached to the Ministry for the Marine; later it was again attached to the Ministry for Commerce; and still later was again attached to the Ministry for the Marine. Meanwhile the business of the administration of the Colonies had fallen under the