SOURCE: Mintz, Max M. “Condorcet's Reconsideration of America as a Model for Europe.” Journal of the Early Republic 11, no. 4 (winter 1991): 493-506.

In the essay which follows, Mintz focuses on Condorcet's writings on the American Constitution.

In 1783, the Marquis de Condorcet, an ardent advocate of natural rights, was concerned that the ideals of the American Revolution no longer exerted a strong influence among the political leaders he met in the salons of Paris. “Now that the independence of the United States is recognized and assured,” he observed, “they seem to regard it with indifference. …”¹

His first career had been as a mathematician, and at the age of twenty-six, after publication of an acclaimed treatise on integral calculus, he had been elected to the Paris Academy of Sciences, of which he became permanent secretary. He was equally drawn, however, to social issues, and in 1774 he published Letter of a Theologian...