SOURCE: Michael, Colette Verger. “Condorcet and the Inherent Contradiction in the American Affirmation of Natural Rights and Slaveholding.” Transactions on the Fifth International Congress on the Enlightenment 2 (1980): 768-74.

In this essay, Michael surveys Condorcet's writings on slavery in America and his insistence of holding consistent standards of liberty for all.

‘Profoundly influenced by the idea of progress, Condorcet strove to establish a system of government which provided, above all other things, for a peaceful mechanism of change.’¹ Appraising the American political theory at its just value and impressed by it, he could not have failed to see not only the possibility for changes but also the needs. As a political scientist and a humanitarian he saw the inherent contradiction in the American affirmation of natural rights and slaveholding and he strove to bring about some changes. Condorcet was convinced that society could be moulded through appropriate political control...