The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Illustrations
• Introduction
• Rousseau’s Social Contract
• Prefatory Note.
• Book I.
• Introductory Note.
• Chapter I.: Subject of the First Book.
• Chapter II.: Primitive Societies.
• Chapter III.: The Right of the Strongest.
• Chapter IV.: Slavery.
• Chapter V.: That It Is Always Necessary to Go Back to a First Convention.
• Chapter VI.: The Social Pact.
• 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 Can Err.
• Chapter IV.: The Limits of the Sovereign Power.
• Chapter V.: The Right of Life and Death.
• Chapter VI.: The Law.
• Chapter VII.: The Legislator.
• Chapter VIII.: The People.
• Chapter IX.: The People (continued).
• Chapter X.: The People (continued.)
• Chapter XI.: The Different Systems of Legislation.
• Chapter XII.: Division of the Laws.
• Book III.
• Chapter I.: Government In General.
• Chapter II.: The Principle Which Constitutes the Different Forms of Government.
• Chapter III.: Classification of Governments.
• Chapter IV.: Democracy. *
• Chapter V.: Aristocracy.
• Chapter VI.: Monarchy.
• Chapter VII.: Mixed Governments.
• Chapter VIII.: That Every Form of Government Is Not Fit For Every Country.
• Chapter IX.: The Marks of a Good Government.
• Chapter X.: The Abuse of the Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate.
• Chapter XI.: The Dissolution of the Body Politic.
• Chapter XII.: How the Sovereign Authority Is Maintained.
• Chapter XIII.: How the Sovereign Authority Is Maintained —(continued).
• Chapter XIV.: How the Sovereign Authority Is Maintained — (continued.)
• Chapter XV.: Deputies Or Representatives.
• Chapter XVI.: That the Institution of the Government Is Not a Contract.
• Chapter XVII.: The Institution of the Government.
• Chapter XVIII.: Means of Preventing Usurpations of the 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 Tribuneship.
• Chapter VI.: The Dictatorship.
• Chapter VII.: The Censorship.
• Chapter VIII.: Civil Religion.
• Chapter IX.: Conclusion.
• Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.
• Book I.
• Book II.
• Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot.
• Of Their Magistrates.
• Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life.
• Of Their Traffic.
• Of the Traveling of the Utopians.
• Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages.
• Of Their Military Discipline.
• Of the Religions of the Utopians.
• Bacon’s New Atlantis.
• Campanella’s City of the Sun.

CHAPTER XIV.

How the Sovereign Authority is Maintained — (Continued.)

So soon as the people are lawfully assembled as a sovereign body, the whole jurisdiction of the government ceases, the executive power is suspended, and the person of the meanest citizen is as sacred and inviolable as that of the first magistrate, because where the represented are, there is no longer any representative. Most of the tumults that arose in Rome in the comitia proceeded from ignorance or neglect of this rule. The consuls were then only presidents of the people and the tribunes simple orators; the Senate had no power at all.

These intervals of suspension, in which the Prince recognizes or ought to recognize the presence of a superior, have always been dreaded by that power; and these assemblies of the people, which are the shield of the body politic and the curb of the government, have in all ages been the terror of the chief men; hence such men are never wanting in solicitude, objections, obstacles, and promises, in the endeavor to make the citizens disgusted with the assemblies. When the latter are avaricious, cowardly, pusillanimous, and more desirous of repose than of freedom, they do not long hold out against the repeated efforts of the government; and thus, as the resisting force constantly increases, the sovereign authority at last disappears, and most of the States decay and perish before their time.

But between the sovereign authority and the arbitrary government there is sometimes introduced an intermediate power of which I must speak.