This is a third relation in which the assembled people may be considered, i.e., as magistrates or executors of the law which it has passed in its capacity as sovereign. [Footnote:  These problems and theorems are mostly taken from the Treatise on the Social Contract, itself a summary of a larger work, undertaken without due consideration of my own powers, and long since abandoned.]

We will now inquire whether it is possible for the nation to deprive itself of its right of sovereignty, to bestow it on one or more persons; for the decree of election not being a law, and the people in this decree not being themselves sovereign, we do not see how they can transfer a right which they do not possess.

The essence of sovereignty consisting in the general will, it is equally hard to see how we can be certain that an individual will shall always be in agreement with the general will.  We should rather assume that it will often be opposed to it; for individual interest always tends to privileges, while the common interest always tends to equality, and if such an agreement were possible, no sovereign right could exist, unless the agreement were either necessary or indestructible.

We will inquire if, without violating the social pact, the heads of the nation, under whatever name they are chosen, can ever be more than the officers of the people, entrusted by them with the duty of carrying the law into execution.  Are not these chiefs themselves accountable for their administration, and are not they themselves subject to the laws which it is their business to see carried out?

If the nation cannot alienate its supreme right, can it entrust it to others for a time?  Cannot it give itself a master, cannot it find representatives?  This is an important question and deserves discussion.

If the nation can have neither sovereign nor representatives we will inquire how it can pass its own laws; must there be many laws; must they be often altered; is it easy for a great nation to be its own lawgiver?

Was not the Roman people a great nation?

Is it a good thing that there should be great nations?

It follows from considerations already established that there is an intermediate body in the state between subjects and sovereign; and this intermediate body, consisting of one or more members, is entrusted with the public administration, the carrying out of the laws, and the maintenance of civil and political liberty.

The members of this body are called magistrates or kings, that is to say, rulers.  This body, as a whole, considered in relation to its members, is called the prince, and considered in its actions it is called the government.