The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• The Social Contract Or Principles of Political Right
• Foreword
• Book I
• Chapter I: Subject of the First Book
• Chapter II: The First Societies
• Chapter III: The Right of the Strongest
• Chapter IV: Slavery
• Chapter V: That We Must Always Go Back to a First Convention
• Chapter VI: The Social Compact
• Chapter VII: The Sovereign
• Chapter VIII: The Civil State
• Chapter IX: Real Property
• Book Ii
• Chapter I: That Sovereignty Is Inalienable
• Chapter II: That Sovereignty Is Indivisible
• Chapter III: Whether the General Will Is Fallible
• Chapter IV: The Limits of the Sovereign Power
• Chapter V: The Right of Life and Death
• Chapter VI: Law
• Chapter VII: The Legislator
• Chapter VIII: The People
• Chapter IX: The People ( Continued )
• Chapter X: The People ( Continued )
• Chapter XI: The Various Systems of Legislation
• Chapter XII: The Division of the Laws
• Book Iii
• Chapter I: Government In General
• Chapter II: The Constituent Principle In the Various Forms of Government
• Chapter III: The Division of Governments
• Chapter IV: Democracy
• Chapter V: Aristocracy
• Chapter VI: Monarchy
• Chapter VII: Mixed Governments
• Chapter VIII: That All Forms of Government Do Not Suit All Countries
• Chapter IX: The Marks of a Good Government
• Chapter X: The Abuse of Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate
• Chapter XI: The Death of the Body Politic
• Chapter XII: How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself
• Chapter XIII: The Same ( Continued )
• Chapter XIV: The Same ( Continued )
• Chapter XV: Deputies Or Representatives
• Chapter XVI: That the Institution of Government Is Not a Contract
• Chapter XVII: The Institution of Government
• Chapter XVIII: How to Check the Usurpations of Government
• Book Iv
• Chapter I: That the General Will Is Indestructible
• Chapter II: Voting
• Chapter III: Elections
• Chapter IV: The Roman Comitia
• Chapter V: The Tribunate
• Chapter VI: The Dictatorship
• Chapter VII: The Censorship
• Chapter VIII: Civil Religion
• Chapter IX: Conclusion
• A Discourse Which Won the Prize At the Academy of Dijon In 1750, On This Question Proposed By the Academy: Has the Restoration of the Arts and Sciences Had a Purifying Effect Upon Morals ?
• A Discourse On the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences Decipimur Specie Recti. — Horace.
• The First Part
• The Second Part
• A Discourse On a Subject Proposed By the Academy of Dijon: What Is the Origin of Inequality Among Men, and Is It Authorised By Natural Law ?
• A Discourse On Political Economy

CHAPTER XIV

the same (continued)

The moment the people is legitimately assembled as a sovereign body, the jurisdiction of the government wholly lapses, the executive power is suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of the first magistrate; for in the presence of the person represented, representatives no longer exist. Most of the tumults that arose in the comitia at Rome were due to ignorance or neglect of this rule. The consuls were in them merely the presidents of the people; the tribunes were mere speakers;1 the senate was nothing at all.

These intervals of suspension, during which the prince recognises or ought to recognise an actual superior, have always been viewed by him with alarm; and these assemblies of the people, which are the aegis of the body politic and the curb on the government, have at all times been the horror of rulers: who therefore never spare pains, objections, difficulties, and promises, to stop the citizens from having them. When the citizens are greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous, and love ease more than liberty, they do not long hold out against the redoubled efforts of the government; and thus, as the resisting force incessantly grows, the sovereign authority ends by disappearing, and most cities fall and perish before their time.

But between the sovereign authority and arbitrary government there sometimes intervenes a mean power of which something must be said.

[1]In nearly the same sense as this word has in the English Parliament. The similarity of these functions would have brought the consuls and the tribunes into conflict, even had all jurisdiction been suspended.