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G regoire and the EgalitariantsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB M ovem ent R u th F . N ech eles In 1787, at the outset of Henri-Baptiste Gregoire’s political ca­ reer, the word "equality” had little practical meaning because pre­ revolutionary European society consisted of numerous classes, each possessing its separate rights, privileges, and disadvantages. But some groups—Jews, Africans, and American Indians, for ex­ ample—were less equal than others. Justifying discrimination on cultural grounds, eighteenth-century men defined their civiliza­ tion in religious rather than strictly ethnic terms, claiming that pure Christianity surpassed any other moral system. Such people as Jews, who later would be discriminated against on racial grounds, were granted the same status as their Christian counter­ parts if they were willing to join the dominant faith. Prejudice based on the Jews’ supposed racial characteristics developed only in those regions where a significant number converted to Chris­ tianity. Europeans who ventured outside their continent confronted an entirely new problem, and they responded by developing racist attitudes. Although Negro and Indian cultural inferiority ap­ peared obvious, the colonists were uncertain about the mixed off­ spring produced by intercourse with African slaves. The several European nations assigned different roles to the mulattoes; King Louis XIV’s C ode N o ir, for example, treated them as native French­ men. But the planters in the colonies steadfastly refused their chil­ dren the same opportunity to assimilate that was offered to the Jews at home, and throughout the eighteenth century placed in­ creasing restrictions on the mulattoes. 355 Ra c is m in t h e Eig h t e e n t h Ce n t u r y Without the Revolution, discrimination against Jews and mulattoes might have remained unquestioned for several more de­ cades.1 But the opening of the Estates General in May 1789 made their status a national issue because, of all native-born Frenchmen, only Jews and mulattoes were denied representation in the assem­ bly. On the surface, the mulatto and Jewish questions seemed dis­ similar. In the one case discrimination rested on ancient religious antipathies, reinforced by the unpopular economic role played by the northeastern Jews. In the other, discrimination against mulat­ toes appeared essential in order to preserve a racially defined caste system. But the connection between the two cases was obvious to the spokesman for France’s egalitarian movement, the radical Abbe Gregoire. As an eighteenth-century cleric, Gregoire had been trained in Enlightenment as well as in Roman Catholic ideology. Combining the two traditions, he hoped to pave the way for a universal so­ ciety of men, all of whom would believe in a reformed, revitalized Christianity, share the same rights and duties, and be divided for convenience’s sake into self-contained national states. Realizing that this goal was utopian, he worked to create in France the foun­ dations upon which this social order might eventually spread to other nations. As far as he was concerned, the Revolution had to reform the Roman Catholic church and enact a code of civil and social rights that would apply to all residents of the French em­ pire.2 Racial equality was never more than one aspect of Gregoire’s pro­ gram, and at first he discarded arguments concerning racial in­ equality as outmoded. "I swear,” he wrote in December 1789, "that I am a bit ashamed to fight such an objection at the end of the eighteenth century.”3 Although he refrained from discussing anti-Semitism as a racial issue, the religious and political assump­ tions underlying his early arguments for Jewish emancipation served as a foundation for his subsequent anti-racist campaign, and they merit some attention here. God, according to Gregoire, created all men free and equal.4 Even if the Jewish people5 had earned God’s disfavor for the 356 G regoire a n d th e E galitarian M o vem en ttsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA crime of deicide, vengeance belonged to God alone; He had not delegated its exercise to secular rulers.6 Indeed, Gregoire assumed that God eventually intended to save the Jews by permitting them to become Christians.7 Gregoire believed that the Jews in northeastern France were not yet...

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