Key Arguments

• Rousseau defines government functionally as 'An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.'
• He identifies the members of this body as 'magistrates or kings, that is to say governors,' and the whole body as 'the prince,' clarifying that 'prince' names the governing body, not a separate sovereign.
• He endorses the view that the act by which a people puts itself under a prince is not a contract but argues that it is instead 'simply and solely a commission, an employment,' stressing that it does not transfer sovereignty.
• He characterizes rulers as 'mere officials of the Sovereign' who 'exercise in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries,' stressing their derivative and fiduciary status.
• He insists that this power is wholly at the Sovereign’s disposal: 'This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association.'
• He therefore defines government or 'supreme administration' as 'the legitimate exercise of the executive power,' and 'prince or magistrate' as 'the man or the body entrusted with that administration,' distinguishing institution from office-holder.

Source Quotes

Here we have what is, in the State, the basis of government, often wrongly confused with the Sovereign, whose minister it is. What then is government? An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say governors, and the whole body bears the name prince.

An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political. The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say governors, and the whole body bears the name prince. Thus those who hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly right.

The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say governors, and the whole body bears the name prince. Thus those who hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly right. It is simply and solely a commission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries.

Thus those who hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly right. It is simply and solely a commission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries. This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association.

It is simply and solely a commission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries. This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association. I call then government, or supreme administration, the legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince or magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that administration.

This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association. I call then government, or supreme administration, the legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince or magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that administration. In government reside the intermediate forces whose relations make up that of the whole to the whole, or of the Sovereign to the State.

Key Concepts

• What then is government? An intermediate body set up between the subjects and the Sovereign, to secure their mutual correspondence, charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of liberty, both civil and political.
• The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say governors, and the whole body bears the name prince.
• those who hold that the act, by which a people puts itself under a prince, is not a contract, are certainly right.
• It is simply and solely a commission, an employment, in which the rulers, mere officials of the Sovereign, exercise in their own name the power of which it makes them depositaries.
• This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association.
• I call then government, or supreme administration, the legitimate exercise of the executive power, and prince or magistrate the man or the body entrusted with that administration.

Context

Early in Book III, Chapter I, after distinguishing legislative and executive power, Rousseau offers his formal definition of government and clarifies the juridical status of the prince as a commissioned agent, not a contracting partner or sovereign.