A sculpture by Fabrice Hyber in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris commemorates the abolition of slavery. Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images On Aug. 21, 1789, just a month after the storming of the Bastille that launched the French Revolution, France’s new governing body, the National Assembly, approved the first article of its historic Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The French document proclaimed that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” echoing the most famous line