No dominant religion was admitted; the liberty of worship was proclaimed; the State was not to take on itself the support of any religious institution. Marriage was declared a purely civil act, and in some cases divorce was permitted. State offences were to be tried by a council to be named by the Emperor. All property belonging to white Frenchmen was confiscated to the State. The houses of the citizens were pronounced inviolable. The Constitution was placed under the safeguard of the magistrates, of fathers, of mothers, of citizens, of soldiers, and recommended to their descendants, to all the friends of liberty, to the philanthropists of all countries, as a striking token of the goodness of God, who, in the order of his immortal decrees, had given the Haytians power to break their bonds, and make themselves a free, civilized, and independent people. This Constitution, which, considering its origin, contains so much that is excellent, and which even the long civilized States of Europe might advantageously study, was accepted by the emperor, and ordered to be forthwith carried into execution. The condition of the farm-laborer was the same as under the system of Toussaint L’Ouverture; he labored for wages which were fixed at one-fourth of the produce, and that produce was abundant. The whip and all corporal punishments were abolished. Idleness was regarded as a crime, but was punished only by imprisonment. Two-thirds of the labor extracted under slavery was the amount required under the new system. Thus the laborers gained a diminution of one-third of their toil, while their wants were amply supplied. The mulattoes, or quaterons, children of whites and mulattoes, who were very numerous, if they could show any relationship, whether legitimate or not, with the old white proprietors, were allowed to inherit their property. Education was not neglected in the midst of these outward and material arrangements. In nearly all the districts, schools were established; and the people, seeing what advantage was to be derived from learning, entered them, and plied themselves vigorously to gain in freedom what they had lost in slavery. A praiseworthy effort was made by the framers of the constitution, under which Dessalines was inaugurated emperor, to extinguish all distinctions of color among the colored people themselves. They decreed that the people should be denominated _blacks_; but such distinctions are far stronger than words on paper. Unfortunately, the distinctions in question, which was deeply rooted, and rested on prejudices and antipathies which will never be erased from human nature, had been aggravated by long and sanguinary contests between the blacks and mulattoes.