Jean-Jacques Rousseau · Complete work
Book III, Chapter 15
Book III, Chapter 15 of 49. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
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Des Députés ou Réprésentans.
Sitôt que le service public cesse d’être la principale affaire des Citoyens, & qu’ils aiment mieux servir de leur bourse que de leur personne, l’Etat est déjà près de sa ruine. Faut-il marcher au combat? ils payent des troupes & restent chez eux; faut-il aller au Conseil? ils nomment des Députés & restent chez eux. A force de paresse & d’argent ils ont enfin des soldats pour asservir la patrie & des réprésentans pour la vendre.
C’est le tracas du commerce & des arts, c’est l’avide intérêt du gain, c’est la mollesse & l’amour des comodités, qui changent les services personnels en argent. On cede une partie de son profit pour l’augmenter à son aise. Donnez de l’argent, & bientôt vous aurez des fers. Ce mot de finance est un mot d’esclave; il est inconnu dans la Cité. Dans un État vraiment libre les citoyens font tout avec leurs bras & rien avec de l’argent: Loin de payer pour s’exempter de leurs devoirs, ils payeroient pour les remplir eux-mêmes. Je suis bien loin des idées communes; je crois les corvées moins contraires à la liberté que les taxes.
Mieux l’État est constitué, plus les affaires publiques l’emportent sur les privées dans l’esprit des Citoyens. Il y a même beaucoup moins d’affaires privées, parce que la somme du bonheur commun fournissant une portion plus considérable à celui de chaque individu, il lui en reste moins à chercher dans les soins particuliers. Dans une cité bien conduite chacun vole aux assemblées; sous un mauvais Gouvernement nul n’aime à faire un pas pour s’y rendre; parce que nul ne prend intérêt à ce qui s’y fait, qu’on prévoit que la volonté générale n’y dominera pas, & qu’enfin les soins domestiques absorbent tout. Les bonnes loix en font faire de meilleures, les mauvaises en amenent de pires. Sitôt que quelqu’un dit des affaires de l’État, que m’importe? on doit compter que l’État est perdu.
L’attiedissement de l’amour de la patrie, l’activité de l’intérêt privé, l’immensité des États, les conquêtes, l’abus du Gouvernement ont fait imaginer la voye des Députés ou Réprésentans du peuple dans les assemblées de la Nation. C’est ce qu’en certains pays on ose appeller le Tiers-État. Ainsi l’intérêt particulier de deux ordres est mis au premier & second rang, l’intérêt public n’est qu’au troisieme.
La Souveraineté ne peut être réprésentée, par la même raison qu’elle ne peut être aliénée; elle consiste essentiellement dans la volonté générale, & la volonté ne se réprésente point: elle est la même, ou elle est autre; il n’y a point de milieu. Les députés du peuple ne sont donc ni ne peuvent être ses réprésentans, ils ne sont que ses commissaires; ils ne peuvent rien conclure définitivement. Toute loi que le Peuple en personne n’a pas ratifiée est nulle; ce n’est point une loi. Le peuple Anglois pense être libre; il se trompe fort, il ne l’est que durant l’élection des membres du Parlement; sitôt qu’ils sont élus, il est esclave, il n’est rien. Dans les courts momens de sa liberté, l’usage qu’il en fait mérite bien qu’il la perde.
L’idée des Réprésentans est moderne: elle nous vient du Gouvernement féodal, de cet inique & absurde Gouvernement dans lequel l’espece humaine est dégradée, & où le nom d’homme est en deshonneur. Dans les anciennes Républiques & même dans les monarchies, jamais le Peuple n’eut des réprésentans; on ne connoissoit pas ce mot-là. Il est très singulier qu’à Rome où les Tribuns étoient si sacrés on n’ait pas même imaginé qu’ils pussent usurper les fonctions du peuple, & qu’au milieu d’une si grande multitude, ils n’aient jamais tenté de passer de leur chef un seul Plebiscite. Qu’on juge cependant de l’embarras que causoit quelquefois la foule, par ce qui arriva du tems des Gracques, où une partie des Citoyens donnoit son suffrage de dessus les toits.
Où le droit & la liberté sont toutes choses, les inconvéniens ne sont rien. Chez ce sage peuple tout étoit mis à sa juste mésure: il laissoit faire à ses Licteurs ce que ses Tribuns n’eussent osé faire; il ne craignoit pas que ses Licteurs voulussent le réprésenter.
Pour expliquer cependant comment les Tribuns le réprésentoient quelquefois, il suffit de concevoir comment le Gouvernement réprésente le Souverain. La Loi n’étant que la déclaration de la volonté générale, il est clair que dans la puissance Législative le Peuple ne peut être réprésenté; mais il peut & doit l’être dans la puissance exécutive, qui n’est que la force appliquée à la Loi. Ceci fait voir qu’en examinant bien les choses on trouveroit que très peu de Nations ont des loix. Quoi qu’il en soit, il est sûr que les Tribuns, n’ayant aucune partie du pouvoir exécutif, ne purent jamais réprésenter le Peuple romain par les droits de leurs charges, mais seulement en usurpant sur ceux du Sénat.
Chez les Grecs, tout ce que le Peuple avoit à faire il le faisoit par lui-même; il étoit sans cesse assemblé sur la place. Il habitoit un climat doux, il n’étoit point avide, des esclaves faisoient ses travaux, sa grande affaire étoit sa liberté. N’ayant plus les mêmes avantages, comment conserver les mêmes droits? Vos climats plus durs vous donnent plus de besoins, six mois de l’année la place publique n’est pas tenable, vos langues sourdes ne peuvent se faire entendre en plein air, vous donnez plus à votre gain qu’à votre liberté, & vous craignez bien moins l’esclavage que la misere.
Quoi! la liberté ne se maintient qu’à l’appui de la servitude? Peut-être. Les deux excès se touchent. Tout ce qui n’est point dans la nature a ses inconvéniens, & la société civile plus que tout le reste. Il y a telles positions malheureuses où l’on ne peut conserver sa liberté qu’aux dépens de celle d’autrui, & où le Citoyen ne peut être parfaitement libre que l’esclave ne soit extrêmement esclave. Telle étoit la position de Sparte. Pour vous, peuples modernes, vous n’avez point d’esclaves, mais vous l’êtes; vous payez leur liberté de la vôtre. Vous avez beau vanter cette préférence; j’y trouve plus de lâcheté que d’humanité.
Je n’entens point par tout cela qu’il faille avoir des esclaves ni que le droit d’esclavage soit légitime, puisque j’ai prouvé le contraire. Je dis seulement les raisons pourquoi les peuples modernes qui se croyent libres ont des Réprésentans, & pourquoi les peuples anciens n’en avoient pas. Quoi qu’il en soit, à l’instant qu’un Peuple se donne des Réprésentans, il n’est plus libre; il n’est plus.
Tout bien examiné, je ne vois pas qu’il soit désormais possible au Souverain de conserver parmi nous l’exercice de ses droits si la Cité n’est très petite. Mais si elle est très petite elle sera subjuguée? Non. Je ferai voir ci-après comment on peut réunir la puissance extérieure d’un grand Peuple avec la police aisée & le bon ordre d’un petit État.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete French text of the 1762 edition, all four books and the appendix for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
Deputies or Representatives.
As soon as public service ceases to be the citizens' principal concern, and they would rather serve with their purses than in person, the state is already close to ruin. Must they march to battle? They pay troops and stay at home. Must they attend the council? They appoint deputies and stay at home. By dint of laziness and money, they finally have soldiers to enslave the fatherland and representatives to sell it.
It is the bustle of commerce and the arts, the greedy pursuit of gain, softness and the love of convenience, that turn personal service into payments of money. One yields a portion of one's profit to increase it at one's ease. Give money, and soon you will have chains. Finance is a slave's word; it is unknown in the city. In a truly free state citizens do everything with their own hands and nothing with money: far from paying to be exempted from their duties, they would pay to perform them themselves. I am far from the common view; I believe compulsory labor less contrary to freedom than taxes.
The better constituted the state, the more public affairs outweigh private ones in the citizens' minds. There are even far fewer private affairs, because the sum of common happiness contributes a larger share to each individual's happiness, leaving him less to seek through private cares. In a well-ordered city everyone hastens to the assemblies; under a bad government no one likes to take a step to attend them, because no one takes an interest in what is done there, because it is foreseen that the general will surely will not prevail there, and because, finally, domestic concerns consume everything. Good laws lead to better laws; bad ones bring on worse. As soon as anyone says of the affairs of state, “What does it matter to me?” the state must be reckoned lost.
The cooling of love of country, the activity of private interest, the vastness of states, conquests, and the abuse of government have led to the device of deputies or representatives of the people in the nation's assemblies. This is what in certain countries they dare call the Third Estate. Thus the particular interest of two orders is placed first and second; the public interest comes only third.
Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason that it cannot be alienated: it consists essentially in the general will, and the will cannot be represented. It is either the same will or another; there is no middle course. The people's deputies, then, are not and cannot be its representatives; they are only its commissioners. They can decide nothing definitively. Any law that the people have not ratified in person is null; it is no law at all. The English people think themselves free; they are gravely mistaken. They are free only during the election of the members of Parliament; as soon as those members are elected, the people are enslaved, they are nothing. The use they make of their brief moments of freedom richly deserves its loss.
The idea of representatives is modern: it comes to us from feudal government, that unjust and absurd government in which the human species is degraded and the very name of man dishonored. In the ancient republics, and even in monarchies, the people never had representatives; the word was unknown. It is remarkable that in Rome, where the tribunes were so sacred, no one even imagined that they could usurp the people's functions, and that amid so great a multitude they never attempted to pass a single plebiscite on their own authority. Yet the trouble the crowd sometimes caused may be judged from what happened in the time of the Gracchi, when some citizens cast their votes from the rooftops.
Where right and liberty are everything, inconveniences count for nothing. Among that wise people everything was kept in its proper measure: it let its lictors do what its tribunes would never have dared to do; it did not fear that its lictors would seek to represent it.
To explain, however, how the tribunes sometimes represented the people, it is enough to understand how the government represents the sovereign. Since law is only the declaration of the general will, it is clear that the people cannot be represented in legislative power; but it can and must be represented in executive power, which is merely force applied to law. This shows that, if the matter is closely examined, very few nations will be found to have laws. In any case, it is certain that the tribunes, having no share in executive power, could never represent the Roman people by virtue of their office, but only by usurping the rights of the Senate.
Among the Greeks, whatever the people had to do, they did themselves; they were continually assembled in the public square. They lived in a mild climate, they were not greedy, slaves did their work, and their chief concern was liberty. Without the same advantages, how can you preserve the same rights? Your harsher climates give you greater needs; for six months of the year the public square is uninhabitable; your muffled languages cannot be heard in the open air; you devote yourselves more to gain than to liberty, and you fear slavery far less than poverty.
What! Can liberty be maintained only with the support of servitude? Perhaps. The two extremes touch. Everything that is not in nature has its disadvantages, and civil society more than anything else. There are unhappy circumstances in which people can preserve their own liberty only at the expense of someone else's, and the citizen can be perfectly free only if the slave is utterly enslaved. Such was the condition of Sparta. As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you yourselves are slaves; you pay for their freedom with your own. You may boast of this preference as much as you like; I find in it more cowardice than humanity.
I do not mean by any of this that we ought to have slaves, or that the right of slavery is legitimate, since I have proved the contrary. I state only why modern peoples who believe themselves free have representatives, and why ancient peoples had none. Be that as it may, the moment a people gives itself representatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists.
On examining everything, I cannot see how it will henceforth be possible for the sovereign to retain the exercise of its rights among us unless the city is very small. But if it is very small, will it be conquered? No. I shall show later how the external power of a great people can be united with the easy administration and good order of a small state.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete French text of the 1762 edition, all four books and the appendix.
Deputies or Representatives.
As soon as citizens stop making public service their main concern, and would rather contribute money than serve in person, the state is already close to ruin. When they have to march into battle, they pay troops and stay home. When they have to go to the council, they appoint deputies and stay home. Through laziness and money, they finally acquire soldiers to enslave their country and representatives to sell it.
The demands of trade and the crafts, the eager pursuit of profit, softness, and the love of convenience are what turn personal service into a payment of money. People give up some of their profit so they can comfortably make more. Pay money, and soon you will be in chains. The word finance is a slave's word. It is unknown in a free city. In a truly free state, citizens do everything with their own hands and nothing with money. Far from paying to avoid their duties, they would pay to carry them out themselves. I am far from the usual view: I think compulsory labor is less opposed to freedom than taxes are.
The better a state is organized, the more public affairs outweigh private affairs in citizens' minds. There are even far fewer private affairs, because each person gets a greater share of happiness from the common good and has less left to seek through private efforts. In a well-run city-state, everyone rushes to the assemblies. Under a bad government, no one wants to take a step to get there. No one cares what happens at them; people expect the general will not to prevail there, and in the end household concerns take up all their attention. Good laws lead to better ones, and bad laws lead to worse ones. As soon as anyone says of state affairs, "What does it matter to me?" the state must be considered lost.
A weakening love of country, the drive for private advantage, the vast size of states, conquests, and abuses of government have led people to devise the use of deputies or representatives of the people in national assemblies. In some countries they dare to call this the Third Estate. So the private interests of two orders come first and second, and the public interest comes only third.
Sovereignty cannot be represented for the same reason it cannot be given away. It consists essentially in the general will, and a will cannot be represented. It is either the same will or a different one; there is no middle ground. The people's deputies, then, are not and cannot be their representatives. They are only their agents and cannot make any final decision. Any law the people have not ratified in person is void; it is not a law. The English people think they are free, but they are badly mistaken. They are free only during the election of members of Parliament. As soon as those members are elected, the people are slaves; they count for nothing. What they do with their brief moments of freedom makes them deserve to lose it.
The idea of representatives is modern. It comes from feudal government, that unjust and absurd government in which humanity is degraded and the name of man is dishonored. In the ancient republics, and even in monarchies, the people never had representatives; the word was unknown. It is very striking that in Rome, where tribunes were so revered, no one even imagined they might take over the people's functions. Amid such a large population, they never tried to pass a single plebiscite on their own authority. Yet the trouble a crowd could sometimes cause is clear from what happened in the time of the Gracchi, when some citizens cast their votes from the rooftops.
Where rights and freedom matter more than anything, inconveniences count for nothing. Among those sensible people, everything was kept in its proper place. They let their lictors do what their tribunes would not have dared to do. They did not fear that their lictors would try to represent them.
Still, to explain how the tribunes sometimes did represent the people, we only need to understand how the government represents the sovereign. Since law is only a declaration of the general will, the people clearly cannot be represented in legislative power. But they can and must be represented in executive power, which is simply force applied to the law. This shows that, if we examine things carefully, we will find that very few nations have laws. In any case, the tribunes held no executive power. They could therefore never represent the Roman people by virtue of their offices, but only by taking over powers belonging to the Senate.
Among the Greeks, the people did everything they had to do themselves. They were constantly assembled in the public square. They lived in a mild climate, they were not greedy, slaves did their work, and freedom was their chief concern. Without those advantages, how can you keep the same rights? Your harsher climates give you more needs. For six months of the year the public square is unbearable. Your voices cannot carry outdoors. You care more about your earnings than your freedom, and you fear poverty far more than slavery.
What? Can freedom be maintained only with the support of servitude? Perhaps. The two extremes meet. Everything that is not natural has its drawbacks, and civil society more than anything else. There are unfortunate circumstances in which people can preserve their freedom only at the expense of someone else's, and a citizen can be completely free only if a slave is utterly enslaved. That was Sparta's situation. As for you, modern peoples, you have no slaves, but you are slaves yourselves. You pay for their freedom with your own. You may praise that choice as much as you like; I see more cowardice than humanity in it.
I do not mean by any of this that people should have slaves, or that a right to enslave them is legitimate. I have already proved the opposite. I am only explaining why modern peoples who believe themselves free have representatives, while ancient peoples had none. In any case, as soon as a people gives itself representatives, it is no longer free; it no longer exists.
All things considered, I cannot see how the sovereign can continue to exercise its rights among us unless the city-state is very small. But if it is very small, will it be conquered? No. Later I will show how the external power of a large people can be combined with the easy administration and good order of a small state.