Rousseau_contrat-social

circumstances in which we can only keep our liberty at others’ expense,
and where the citizen can be perfectly free only when the slave is most
a slave. Such was the case with Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you
have no slaves, but you are slaves yourselves; you pay for their liberty
with your own. It is in vain that you boast of this preference; I find
in it more cowardice than humanity.
I do not mean by all this that it is necessary to have slaves, or that
the right of slavery is legitimate: I am merely giving the reasons why
modern peoples, believing themselves to be free, have representatives,
while ancient peoples had none. In any case, the moment a people allows
itself to be represented, it is no long free: it no longer exists.
All things considered, I do not see that it is possible henceforth for
the Sovereign to preserve among us the exercise of its rights, unless
the city is very small. But if it is very small, it will be conquered?
No. I will show later on how the external strength of a great people[32]
may be combined with the convenient polity and good order of a small
State.
16. THAT THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT IS NOT A CONTRACT
THE legislative power once well established, the next thing is to
establish similarly the executive power; for this latter, which operates
only by particular acts, not being of the essence of the former, is
naturally separate from it. Were it possible for the Sovereign, as such,
to possess the executive power, right and fact would be so confounded
that no one could tell what was law and what was not; and the body
politic, thus disfigured, would soon fall a prey to the violence it was
instituted to prevent.
As the citizens, by the social contract, are all equal, all can
prescribe what all should do, but no one has a right to demand that
another shall do what he does not do himself. It is strictly this right,
which is indispensable for giving the body politic life and movement,
that the Sovereign, in instituting the government, confers upon the
prince.
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