Freedom Everywhere!
National Self-Determination As One Of The “Rights Of Man”

Writing about Lafayette’s remarkable life, the historian Lloyd S. Kramer notes: “No other prominent figure lived through or participated so extensively in the sequence of national revolutions that moved from North America (1770s) to France (1789) to south America (1820s) to Greece (1820s) to Spain (1820s) to France again (1830) to Belgium (1830) and finally to Poland (1831-33) – not to mention other national movements in Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, or Germany. Lafayette connected people and events in all of these places, serving as a liberal revolutionary bridge”. In light of Lafayette’s consistent support for liberal causes and reform movements, it is noteworthy that his legacy today is frequently cited by neo-conservative supporters of democratic export and regime change policies, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s State of the Union address on January 25, 1988: “Let us be for the people of Nicaragua what Lafayette, Pulaski, and Von Steuben were for our forefathers and the cause of American independence.”

Engraving by Auguste Raffet. “Turkish Warrior Standing Upon the Ruins of Greece,” in Œuvres complètes de P. J. de Béranger. Paris: H. Fournier aîné [etc.], 1837.
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Under Ottoman rule, Greece languished in obscurity and poverty until the successful War of Independence (1821-1832). Songwriter Pierre-Jean de Béranger used his talent and popularity to raise awareness of political issues. He wrote a song for Lafayette in 1824 entitled “l’Homme des Deux Mondes” while Lafayette was raising money for the Greeks in the United States.

Emma Hart Willard. Letter to Lafayette. Troy, New York, May 1, 1833.
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In 1821, American women’s rights advocate Emma Hart Willard (1787-1870) founded a “Female Seminary” in Troy, New York, which produced more than 200 women teachers. She planned to open a sister-institution in Athens, Greece, “for it is our duty as Christians to teach this race, highly gifted by nature, but darkened in their mind by ignorance. The ancient Athens we owe so much... and now, Greece solicits us to teach her”. In this letter she thanks Lafayette for supporting her project.

James Fennimore Cooper. Letter to Lafayette. Paris, July 10, 1831.
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At the end of the eighteenth-century, Austria, Prussia and Russia tried to remove Poland from the map by dividing its territory among them. However, Polish nationalism persisted, and gained support worldwide. In this letter the author of The Last of the Mohicans informs his good friend Lafayette about a fundraising meeting held at the Rue de Richelieu by the American community in Paris. A supporter of “the natural and sacred rights of the Poles” from the time he served in America with Polish generals Kosciusko and Pulaski, Lafayette is asked to transmit the money to “the Polish authorities” in exile.

Polish Committee in Paris. Medal Coined in Honor of Lafayette after his Death, 1834.
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“He always remained true to freedom”

Lafayette was a benefactor of the Société historique et littéraire polonaise and the Biblioteka Polska w Parizu, still today the most important Polish cultural institution outside of Poland.

[William Carpenter]. The Rights of Nations…, London, 1832.
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Lafayette’s copy, inscribed with a dedication by the author to “The Patriarch of the Liberties of the Two Worlds.”

As a journalist, William Carpenter (1797-1874) was the nemesis of despotism and aristocracy. One of his bête noires was Ferdinand VII of Spain, restored by the Allies in 1814. Besides rejecting constitutional rule and arresting liberals in Spain, Ferdinand also opposed national independence in South America. In Carpenter’s satirical depiction of a hierarchy of species, he falls between “Beast” (a monkey) and “Man” (the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who held that the greatest happiness of the greatest number should govern any political decision). This humorous piece plays off of the contemporary vogue for phrenology and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution. It also promotes racial prejudices (Ferdinand has “the facial angle of a Negro”), of which Lafayette certainly disapproved.

Portrait of Bolívar, c. 1830.
On loan from Professor Maria-Antonia Garcés.
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In 1804 Lafayette welcomed South-American political refugees to Paris. In May 1821 Rivadavia, the future first President of Argentina, informed him - in French - that Portuguese troops were leaving Montevideo, and that General San Martin was about to enter Lima in triumphant proclamation of Peruvian independence (Lafayette collection, Cornell). In 1825 Lafayette’s former protégé, Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) became the first President of Greater Colombia, which encompassed the territories of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, as well as smaller parts of Costa Rica, Peru, Brazil and Guyana; in 1825 The Republic of Bolivia was named after him. Lafayette was made aware of Bolívar’s dictatorial methods through his correspondence with General Henry “Lafayette” Ducoudray-Holstein, but chose to turn a blind eye to them.

A. Willard. Map of South America, c. 1820.
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