180

Au Corps Électoral, contre l’esclavage des Noirs

Bibliothèque Nationale de France. British Library.

Electoral Body Black Slavery Société Amis Noirs Abolition Natural Rights

President of the Société des Amis des Noirs in 1789, the Marquis de Condorcet was an established figure of French abolitionism. His book, Réflexions sur l'esclavage des nègres, published under a pseudonym, had appeared in 1781 and was published again in 1788. In this essay, entitled 'Au Corps Électoral', Condorcet holds that slavery contravened universally-held "natural rights" (408). He urges the French electorate to raise awareness of this issue among their representatives at the forthcoming assembly of the États Généraux, planned for May 1789. He suggests that national honour was at stake, and that France should set the example for the rest of the world by abolishing the slave trade and slavery.

This essay was reprinted in a later edition of Condorcet's Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain (Paris: Masson et Fils, 1822 [1795]), 407-12 (see the web link). It can also be found in his Oeuvres complètes, tome XVI (Brunswick & Paris: Vieweg, Heinrichs, Fuchs, Koenig, Levrault, Schoell & Co, 1804), 147-54.