The intellectual contribution of Condorcet to the founding of the US Republic 1785–1800

Condorcet's work in his Essai can be seen as an extension of Hume's idea of “probable belief”, set out in Hume's Treatise [24]. Indeed, Condorcet's biographer, Baker [8, p. 13], notes the line of thought from Hume through Condorcet to what we might today call “Bayesian Social Choice Theory.”

Mayer [36] discusses the further correspondence between Madison and Jefferson in 1790 over the issue of debt, and the possibility of constitutional change.

Baker [8, p. 393] observes that Jefferson seemed to approve of Destutt de Tracy's idea of social science, the notion that society can be understood in scientific terms. There is another intriguing indirect connection between Jefferson, Destutt and Condorcet. A Commentaire [18] by Destutt de Tracy on Montesquieu's L'Esprit des lois was published in Paris in 1798, and contained an essay by Condorcet on the twenty-ninth book of L'Esprit (written in 1780). The essay seems to deny the relevance of Montesquieu's notions. Mayer [36, p. 136] points out that Jefferson himself (after retiring from the presidency) translated Destutt's Commentaire and arranged for its publication. This strongly suggests that Jefferson in the mid 1780's had accepted Condorcet's critique of Montesquieu's argument. The complex intellectual connections between the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers (Smith and Hume), Condorcet, Destutt and their colleagues in France, and Jefferson and Madison, have not been explored in any great depth.

As Mayer notes, Jefferson wrote in a letter in 1799, that like Condorcet, he believed that the mind of man was “perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception” [36, p. 306].

There is one consequence of the Hamilton scheme that I have not emphasized, though it is consistent with the view presented by Madison and Jefferson. If the US focused on manufacturing development, then it would be dependent on British capital, and thus become a satellite of the metropole. It is possible that the defeat of Hamilton was necessary for the creation of what Jefferson later called the “Empire for Liberty.”