Racial Equality and the Abolition of Slavery in France :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Racial Equality and the Abolition of Slavery in France When Abb Siyes wondered, What is the third base Estate or are slaves? Nothing. What has it have they been until now in the semipolitical order? Nothing. What does it do they urgency? To be become something (65), he could have just as advantageously spoken of slaves misery rather than the Third Estates plight. While, his scope was limited, his pains were not. undermentioned their first revolution, the French National Assembly helped to change the world. tyro, they saw, they defined, they tried to alleviation all of mankinds suffering. Finally, the term man began to transcend color. If man has rights, they must hold to all men. And thus, the concept of racial equality is born. I will entreat in order to achieve this end, and to prove the necessity of racial equality, Enlightened thinkers exposed flaws in current social philosophy, demonstrated the logical conclusions of their progress, and in the end addressed the implic ations of abolition. Marquis de Condorcet was an outspoken advocate for all forms of human rights-religious, gender, political and especially racial. In his Dedicatory Epistle to the Negro Slaves he writesMy Friends, Although I am not the same color as you, I have always regarded you as my brothers. Nature formed us with the same spirit, the same reason, the same virtues as whitesYour tyrants will reproach meindeed, nothing is more common than the maxims of humanity and evaluator Reducing a man to slaverytakes from the slave not whole all forms of property but also the ability to acquire it (56).Condorcet employs the proficiency of de/humanizing his subjects to display the arbitrary nature of slavery. Moderates, slaves, and whites-anyone could achieve slave status under these random means. Society needs to prevent subordination. The white Condorcet speaks almost in apostrophe the style of his introduction greatly resembles an ode. Addressing the slaves in this manner gives even m ore deference to the lowly slaves. Similarly, the slaves have been elevated to My Friends, further humanizing their cause. Although Condorcet was a well-respected fellow member of the National Assembly, he relates to the slaves how he is not one of the them. The ordered choice of words again serves to equate a white man to a slave. This segments purport lacks both condescension and sarcasm. He nearly supplicates to the slaves for their quintessence. His friends-the blacks-are his brethren. If he shares spirit, virtues, and reasons with slaves, what is to distinguish them?