But as society, more especially when very numerous, is incapable of
assembling itself, unless with great difficulty, as it cannot with
tumult make known its intentions, it is obliged to choose citizens in
whom it places a confidence, whom it makes the interpreter of its will,
whom it constitutes the depositaries of the power requisite to carry it
into execution. Such is the origin of all _government_, which to be
legitimate can only be founded on the free consent of society. Those who
are charged with the care of governing, call themselves sovereigns,
chiefs, legislators: according to the form which society has been
willing to give to its government: these sovereigns are styled monarchs,
magistrates, representatives, &c. Government only borrows its power from
society: being established for no other purpose than its welfare, it is
evident society can revoke this power whenever its interest shall exact
it; change the form of its government; extend or limit the power which
it has confided to its chiefs, over whom, by the immutable laws of
Nature, it always conserves a supreme authority: because these laws
enjoin, that the part shall always remain subordinate to the whole.

Thus sovereigns are the ministers of society, its interpreters, the
depositaries of a greater or of a less portion of its power; but they
are not its absolute masters, neither are they the proprietors of
nations. By a _covenant_, either expressed or implied, they engage
themselves to watch over the maintenance, to occupy themselves with the
welfare of society; it is only upon these conditions society consents to
obey them. The price of obedience is protection. There is or ought to be
a reciprocity of interest between the governed and the governor:
whenever this reciprocity is wanting, society is in that state of
confusion of which we spoke in the fifth chapter: it is verging on
destruction. No society upon earth was ever willing or competent to
confer irrevocably upon its chiefs the power, the right, of doing it