The correct answer to this open question is the following.
The statement that best illustrates the contradiction between enlightenment values and government policies in the early United States is "Enlightenment emphasized equality but the US government allowed some people to hold others as slaves."
The Enlightenment was a time in history when prominent thinkers and philosophers from Europe expressed modern concepts on government and liberties. People such as Jean-Jaques Rosseau, Baron de Montesquiou, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes, influenced other nations with their theories. They influenced people who started the American Revolutionary War in the United States and later, people that started the French Revolution. The contradiction precisely is that Enlightenment emphasized equality but the US government allowed some people to hold others as slaves.
The statement that best illustrates the contradiction between enlightenment values and government policies in the early United States is as below:
'The Enlightenment encouraged the natural rights, but the U.S. government allowed slaves to be treats as property rather than people'.
<u>Explanation</u>:
The US government believed in the promotion and implementation of certain enlightenment values like that of equality, freedom, natural rights, etc., but in reality, it failed to frame and implement policies against the practices of slavery and inequality.
