The Role of Hypocrisy in Slavery: Harriet Martineau in Conversation with Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Frederick Douglass

The Role of Hypocrisy in Slavery: Harriet Martineau and the Social Contract The social contract, by very definition, exists only by agreement of all parties to relinquish certain freedoms in exchange for safety and prosperity. This logically renders slavery a paradoxical phenomenon that should not exist within a social contract. How then, does slavery thrive within these systems? Hypocrisy exercised by those in power sows the injustices necessary to grow and maintain slavery. Harriet Martineau unapologetically calls attention to hypocritical practices, most prevalently within her work examining the education of women, marriage, and her critique of slavery. In this paper presentation for the International Martineau Society Annual Conference, I discussed Harriet Martineau’s work as it relates to oppression and slavery within the social contract. Although Martineau participates in the hypocritical systems that she denounces, which is in itself, hypocrisy, she leverages this duplicity in order to advocate for change.