* * *
When you establish that the
sovereignty of the people is unlimited, you create and toss at random into
human society a degree of power which is too large in itself, and which is
bound to constitute an evil, in whatever hands it is placed. Entrust it to one
man, to several, to all, you will still find that it is equally an evil. You
will think that it is the fault of the holders of such power and, according to
the circumstances, you will accuse in turn monarchy, aristocracy, democracy,
mixed governments or the representative system. You will be wrong: it is in
fact the degree of force, not its holders, which must be denounced. It is
against the weapon, not against the arm holding it, that it is necessary to
strike ruthlessly. There are weights too heavy for the hand of man.
The error of those who, in good
faith, in their love of liberty, have granted boundless power to the
sovereignty of the people, derives from the way in which their political ideas
were formed. In history they have observed a small number or men, or even a
single individual, in possession of an immense power which caused much harm.
But their wrath has been directed against the holders of the power rather than
against the power itself. Instead of destroying it, they have simply thought of
replacing it. It was a curse, yet they have regarded it as a conquest. They
have bestowed it upon the entire society. It has necessarily passed from society
at large to the majority, from the majority to the hands of a few men, often to
a single man. It has caused as much evil as before; while the examples, the
objections, the arguments and the evidence have multiplied themselves against
all political institutions.
In a society founded upon the
sovereignty of the people, it is certain that no individual, no class, are
entitled to subject the rest to their particular will. But it is not true that
society as a whole has unlimited authority over its members.
The universality of the citizens is
sovereign in the sense that no individual, no faction, no partial association
can arrogate sovereignty to itself, unless it has been delegated to it. But it
does not follow from this that the universality of the citizens, or those who
are invested with the sovereignty by them, can dispose sovereignly of the
existence of individuals. There is, on the contrary, a part of human existence
which by necessity remains individual and independent, and which is, by right,
outside any social competence. Sovereignty has only a limited and relative
existence. At the point where independence and individual existence begin, the
jurisdiction of sovereignty ends. If society oversteps this line, it is as
guilty as the despot who has, as his only title, his exterminating sword.
Society cannot exceed its competence without usurpation, nor bypass the
majority without being factious. The assent of the majority is not enough, in
any case, to legitimate its acts: there are acts that nothing could possibly
sanction. Whenever some authority commits any such acts, it hardly matters from
which source it emanates. It is irrelevant whether it calls itself an
individual or a nation. Were it the whole of the nation, save the citizen whom
it oppresses, it would be none the more legitimate.
Rousseau overlooked this truth, and
his error made of his Social Contract,
so often invoked in favour of liberty, the most formidable support for all
kinds of despotism. He defined the contract struck between society and its
members as the complete alienation of each individual with all his rights,
without any reservations, to the community. In order to reassure us about the
consequences of such an absolute renunciation of all the parts of our existence
for the benefit of an abstract being, he tells us that the sovereign, that is
the social body, can neither harm the totality of its members, nor any of them
in particular. Since everyone gives himself entirely, all share the same
condition, and nobody is interested in making that condition onerous to the
others. Because every individual gives himself to all, he does not give himself
to anyone in particular. Everybody acquires over his associates the same rights
as he surrenders in their favour. Thus he gains the equivalent of all that he
loses together with greater strength to preserve what he has. However, Rousseau
forgets that all those preserving attributes which he confers on the abstract
being he calls the sovereign, derive from the fact that it is formed by all
individuals without exception. But as soon as the sovereign must make use of
the power which he possesses, or in other words, as soon as it is necessary to
proceed to the practical organization of authority, as the sovereign cannot
exercise it himself, he must delegate it, and all those attributes disappear.
Because the action performed in the name of all is necessarily, whether we like
it or not, at the disposal of a single individual or of a few, it happens that,
in giving oneself to all, one does not give oneself to nobody, on the contrary,
one submits oneself to those who act in the name of all. Hence it follows that,
by giving ourselves entirely, we do not enter a condition equal for all,
because some derive exclusive advantage from the sacrifice of the rest. It is
not true that nobody has an interest in making the condition of the others more
onerous, because there are associates who are above the common condition. It is
not true that all associates gain the same rights as those they renounce. Not
all of them gain the equivalent of what they lose, and the result of what they
sacrifice is, or can be, the establishment of a power which takes away from
them whatever they have.
Rousseau himself was appalled by
these consequences. Horrorstruck at the immense social power which he had thus
created, he did not know into whose hands to commit such monstrous force, and
he could find no other protection against the danger inseparable from such
sovereignty, than an expedient which made its exercise impossible. He declared
that sovereignty could not be alienated, delegated or represented. This was
equivalent to declaring, in other words, that it could not be exercised. It
meant in practice destroying the principle which he had just proclaimed.
Observe instead how much franker
the partisans of despotism are in their course when they set out from the same
axiom, since it is an axiom which supports and favours them. Hobbes, the man
who has most intelligently reduced despotism to a system, hastened to
acknowledge sovereignty as unlimited, in order to infer from this the
legitimacy of the absolute government of a single individual. Sovereignty, he
says, is absolute; this truth has been recognized in all times, even by those
who have excited sedition or provoked civil wars: their aim was not to
annihilate sovereignty, but rather to transfer its exercise elsewhere.
Democracy is absolute sovereignty in the hands of all; aristocracy absolute
sovereignty in the hands of some; monarchy absolute sovereignty in the hands of
one man. The people have relinquished that absolute sovereignty in favour of a
monarch, who has become its absolute possessor.
It is clear that the absolute
character which Hobbes attributes to the sovereignty of the people is the basis
of his entire system. The word absolute distorts the whole question, and leads
us in to a series of fresh implications. It is the point where the writer abandons
the path of truth to proceed by sophism, towards the aim which he proposed to
himself when he set out. He proves that, since the conventions established by
men are not sufficient to ensure that they will be observed, a coercive power
is necessary to force men to observe them. Because society must protect itself
from external aggression, it needs a common force armed for common defence.
Because men are divided by their pretensions, they need laws to regulate their
rights. He concludes from the first point that the sovereign has the absolute
right to punish; from the second, that he has the absolute right to make war;
from the third, that he is the absolute legislator. Nothing could be more false
than these conclusions. The sovereign has indeed the right to punish, but only
in the case of guilty actions. He has the right to make war, but only when
society is attacked. He has the right to make laws, but only when these laws
are necessary and when they are in accord with justice. Consequently, nothing
is absolute or arbitrary in these attributions. Democracy is indeed authority
entrusted to the hands of all, but it is only the measure of authority
necessary for the safety of the association. Aristocracy is the same authority
entrusted to a few. Monarchy, the same authority conferred on a single person.
The people can renounce that authority in favour of a single individual or of a
few. But their power is still as limited as that of the people who have
invested them with it. By the suppression of a single word, gratuitously
introduced into the construction of a sentence, Hobbes' whole dreadful system
collapses. On the contrary, with the word absolute, neither liberty nor, as we
shall see below, peace nor happiness are possible under any institutions.
Popular government is simply a violent tyranny, monarchical government only a
more concentrated despotism.
When sovereignty is unlimited,
there is no means of sheltering individuals from governments. It is in vain
that you pretend to submit governments to the general will. It is always they
who dictate the content of this will, and all your precautions become illusory.
. . .
No authority upon earth is
unlimited, neither that of the people, nor that of the men who declare
themselves their representatives, nor that of the kings, by whatever title they
reign, nor, finally, that of the law, which, being merely the expression of the
will of the people or of the prince, according to the form of government, must
be circumscribed within the same limits as the authority from which it
emanates.
The citizens possess individual
rights independently of all social and political authority, and any authority
which violates these rights becomes illegitimate. The rights of the citizens
are individual freedom, religious freedom, freedom of opinion, which includes
the freedom to express oneself openly, the enjoyment of property, a guarantee
against all arbitrary power. No authority can call these rights into question
without destroying its own credentials. . . .
Let us now sum up the consequences of
our principles. The sovereignty of the people is not unlimited: it is, on the
contrary, circumscribed within the limits traced by justice and by the rights
of individuals. The will of an entire people cannot make just what is unjust.
The representatives of the nation have no right to do what the nation itself
has no right to do. No monarch, whatever title he may claim, whether that title
rests upon divine right, the right of conquest or the assent of the people,
possesses a power without limits. God, if he intervenes in human affairs, can
only sanction justice. The right of conquest is simply force, which is not a
right, since it passes to whomever seizes it. The assent of the people cannot
legitimate what is illegitimate, because the people cannot delegate to anyone
authority which they do not themselves possess.
An objection presents itself
against the limitation of sovereignty. Is it really possible to limit it? Can
any force effectively prevent it from crossing the barriers prescribed to it?
It is possible, some will argue, through ingenious combinations, to restrain
power by dividing it. We may set its different parts in opposition and balance
them against one another. Yet by what means can we ensure that the total sum
will not be unlimited? How is it possible to limit power other than through
power itself?
No doubt, the abstract limitation
of sovereignty is not sufficient. We must find for political institutions
foundations which combine the interest of the different holders of power so
that their most apparent, most durable and most certain advantage would be to
remain within the limits of their respective attributions. . . .
* * *
The extract is from Chapter One, “On the Sovereignty of the
People,” of the 1815 edition of Principles
of Politics Applicable to All Governments, in Benjamin Constant, Political Writings. Translated and
edited by Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Liberty Fund published in 2003 an English translation
of the 1810 edition of the Principles of
Politics by Dennis O’Keefe, in which the following portrait of Constant appears
as the frontispiece. 
