“For a long while, my intention, my dearest ambition, has been to secure for the nation which has confided to me its destiny the benefit of public instruction…I am completely devoted to this project….So if God blesses my handiwork, and grants me sufficient time, I hope that the inhabitants of Haiti, overcoming the shameful prejudice which has too long weighed upon them, will soon astonish the world by their knowledge.”

“Farming has been greatly extended both by the increase in the number of proprietors and by the steps I have taken against men of no known profession, the idle and the vagabond, who had taken refuge in the cities and towns where they were leading a useless and dissolute existence. By sending them back to the land, I put them in a position to lead a securer life and one more profitable to public morality.”

“Since the first Declaration of our Independence, the maxim of the government which preceded mine, as well as my own, has been not to interfere with the internal affairs of our neighbors… We have always believed that we ought to confine ourselves solely to the defense of our own territory…that we should enjoy quietly within our frontiers the liberty and peace which we have bought with our blood.”