Victor Schoelcher was a politician French, born with Paris the July 22nd 1804 and dead the December 25th 1893 with Houilles.

Biography

It was born on Saturday, July 22, 1804 in a middle-class family originating in Fessenheim in Alsace. It made its studies with the Lycée Condorcet. Judging désœuvré, his/her father, porcelain of reputation, sends it to the Mexico on business in 1830. Visiting Cuba, it is revolted there by the Esclavage. Of return in France, it publishes articles, works, multiplies its displacements of information and adheres to the Company for the abolition of slavery. It will have of cease to only fight for the release of the slaves.

The free trade speech of Schoelcher evolves/moves during its life. Indeed, to the beginning of its engagement, he is opposed to immediate abolition slavery. In 1830, in an article of the Re-examined of Paris , Blacks , he openly asks to leave time to the things. This vision of the abolition which it has, is found in 1833, in its first great work on the colonies: Of the slavery of the Blacks and the colonial legislation . For him, it would be dangerous to return instantaneously freedom to the blacks, because the slaves are not prepared to receive it. It wishes even the maintenance of the sorrow of the whip, without which the Masters could not work any more in the plantations. It is necessary to await a new voyage in the colonies so that it turns to an immediate abolition.

Named, by the minister François Arago, under-secretary of State to the Navy and the colonies in the Provisional government of 1848, it contributes to make adopt the decree on the abolition of slavery in the Colonies. The decree signed by all the members of the government appears with the Moniteur , on March 5th. Deputy of the Martinique and the Guadeloupe between 1848 and 1850 it sits on the left.

As a president of the commission of abolition of slavery, he is the initiator of the decree of April 27th, 1848 abolishing definitively slavery in France. Slavery had already been abolished in France on the initiative of the Abbot Henri Gregoire, during the French revolution (February 4th 1794, 16 Pluviôse year II), then restored by Bonaparte in 1802.

At the time of the Coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1851, it was one of the rare deputies present at the sides of Jean-Baptiste Baudin on the barricade where this one will be killed. Republican, defender of the women's rights, adversary of the capital punishment, it is proscribed during the Second Empire by the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He exiles himself in England where he frequently meets his friend Victor Hugo. In 1870 it returns to France following the demolished of Sedan. After the abdication of Napoleon III, he is re-elected appointed of Martinique to the National Assembly (1871). The December 16th 1875, it is elected irremovable senator.

In 1877, Victor Schoelcher deposits a private bill to prohibit the drubbing in the bagnes. The commission of initiative refuses the proposal, but the body sorrows will be abolished in 1880. In 1884 and 1885 it tries to be opposed, without success, with the instition of the relegation of the convicts recidivists in Guyana.

At the end of its life, as he had never married and than he had not had of child, he decided to give all that he had.

Victor Shoelcher died, on December 25th, 1893, at the 89 years age, in his house with 24 rue d'Argenteuil, become since the Schoelcher avenue, in Houilles (Yvelines).

Buried to Paris with the Cemetery of the Father-Lachaise, his ashes were transferred to the the Pantheon the May 20th 1949 at the same time as those from the Guianese Felix Éboué (first black to be buried there).

In homage to its combat against slavery, common the Box-Ship (Martinique), took the name of Schoelcher in 1888.

The commune of Fessenheim with fact of the house of the Schoelcher family a museum which bears its name.

Works

• “Of the Blacks”, Re-examined of Paris , volume XX, 1830, pp. 71-83.
• Of the slavery of the Blacks and the colonial legislation 1833.
• Abolition of slavery. Examination criticizes prejudice against the color of African and blood-mélés , 1840
• Of the French colonies. Immediate abolition of slavery . 1842
• foreign Colonies and Haiti. Results of the English emancipation. Glance on the progress achieved of stamping . 1843
• Of the petition of the workmen for the immediate abolition of slavery . 1844
• History of slavery during the two last years. 1847

Quotations

• Schoelcher, a man whose each word is still an explosive bullet. Aime Césaire (1948)
• We say and say to our children that as long as there will remain a slave on the surface of the Earth, the control of this man is a permanent insult made with the very whole human race. Victor Schoelcher.

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