at the
child of a slave comes a slave into the world, have in other words
decided, that a man does not come a man into the world.

It therefore appears to me incontestably true, that not only
governments did not begin by arbitrary power, which is but the
corruption and extreme term of government, and at length brings it
back to the law of the strongest, against which governments were at
first the remedy, but even that, allowing they had commenced in this
manner, such power being illegal in itself could never have served as
a foundation to the rights of society, nor of course to the inequality
of institution.

I shall not now enter upon the inquiries which still remain to be made
into the nature of the fundamental pacts of every kind of government,
but, following the common opinion, confine myself in this place to the
establishment of the political body as a real contract between the
multitude and the chiefs elected by it. A contract by which both
parties oblige themselves to the observance of the laws that are
therein stipulated, and form the bands of their union. The multitude
having, on occasion of the social relations between them, concentered
all their wills in one person, all the articles, in regard to which
this will explains itself, become so many fundamental laws, which
oblige without exception all the members of the state, and one of
which laws regulates the choice and the power of the magistrates
appointed to look to the execution of the rest. This power extends to
everything that can maintain the constitution, but extends to nothing
that can alter it. To this power are added honours, that may render
the laws and the ministers of them respectable; and the persons of the
ministers are distinguished by certain prerogatives, which may make
them amends for the great fatigues inseparable from a good
administration. The magistrate, on his side, obliges himself not to
use the power with which he is intrusted but conformably to the
intention of his constituents, to maintain every one of them in the
peaceable possession of his property, and upon all occasions prefer
the good of the public to his own private interest.

Before experience had demonstrated, or a thorough knowledge of the
human heart had pointed out, the abuses inseparable from such a
constitution, it must have appeared so much the more perfect, as those
appointed to look to its preservation were themselves most concerned
therein; for magistracy and its