I would just like to mention that an attitude similar to that of Condorcet
was taken by the Brazilian Minister of Finance, Rui Barbosa, regarding the
documents about slavery in Brazil. To remind you, slavery had been
abolished in Brazil in 1888, and the republic began on 1889 (when the
Emperor Pedro II was forced to resign). Facing the possibility that the
Republican government could be sued by the former slave owners asking for
a financial compensation, Barbosa ordered in 1890 the destruction of all
the documents that could serve as a basis for that  claim (the measure was
actually executed in 1891, when he was no longer in office).

Rui Barbosa was one of the most brilliant Brazilian intellectuals of those
days, not an economist but a journalist and lawyer. His attitude has not
only made very difficult the work of all the historians working on slavery
(as Alain mentioned on France!!), but also had the (unintended)
consequence of making difficult nowadays the claims of the descendants of
the slaves for compensations (something that would have sound absurd in
1891).

However, I think that in the case of Rui Barbosa, as in the case of
Condorcet, we need to be more sympathetic and try to put ourselves in the
situation in which those extreme attitudes were taken, both trying to
favour a majority against the possible claims of a very powerful minority,
remembering that these claims could have dire consequences for most of the
people in Brazil and in France, respectively.

Ramon Garcia Fernandez