Magistrate is Rousseau’s word for a government administrator or civil servant, which he uses interchangeably with the terms “king” and “governor.”
Magistrate Quotes in The Social Contract
The The Social Contract quotes below are all either spoken by Magistrate or refer to Magistrate. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 3, Chapter 18
Quotes
At the opening of these assemblies, of which the only purpose is the maintenance of the social treaty, two motions should be put, motions which may never be annulled and which must be voted separately:
The first: “Does it please the sovereign to maintain the present form of government?”
The second: “Does it please the people to leave the administration to those at present charged with it?”
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Magistrate Term Timeline in The Social Contract
The timeline below shows where the term Magistrate appears in The Social Contract. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 3, Chapter 1: Of Government in General
...another word for “the legitimate exercise of executive power.” He uses the words “prince” and “magistrate” to refer to the institution that governs.
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Book 3, Chapter 2: The Constitutive Principle of the Different Forms of Government
Rousseau contends that, if a government adds more magistrates (administrators) without the state growing, each magistrate starts getting power and the government as a...
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...of the government relative to the sovereign and the subjects by changing its number of magistrates. In the previous chapter, he argued that government needs more “repressive force” the bigger its...
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Book 3, Chapter 3: Classification of Governments
Having established that governments differ primarily based on “the number of members [magistrates] who compose them,” now Rousseau defines the different kinds of government on this basis. If...
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...conclusion from the last chapter: states with larger populations of citizens should have relatively fewer magistrates. Therefore, he concludes, “democratic government suits small states, aristocratic government suits states of intermediate size...
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Book 3, Chapter 5: Aristocracy
...execution of the law follows directly from the public will,” nor for large countries where magistrates get too much power over the territories they govern. And it still requires “virtues of...
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Book 3, Chapter 6: Monarchy
...best in large states. He further explains that, because monarchies vest all power in one magistrate’s hands, kings become too disconnected from the people, so they create “social orders” (like nobility)...
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Book 3, Chapter 10: The Abuse of Government and its Tendency to Degenerate
...the sovereign (just like the tension between the particular and general wills of citizens and magistrates). Ultimately, he says, the government will always defeat the sovereign, “just as old age and...
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Book 3, Chapter 14: The Same—Continued
...only ever an expression of the fundamentally superior sovereign power). This tends to scare the magistrates that run the government, and when they try to seize control from the people, they...
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Book 3, Chapter 17: The Institution of the Government
...two parts: first, the sovereign passes a law establishing government, and second, it names the magistrates who will run the government. This second stage is “a particular act,” not a general...
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Book 3, Chapter 18: Means of Preventing the Usurpation of Government
...“the act which institutes the government is not a contract but a law,” emphasizes that magistrates must work dutifully for the sovereign, rather than having power over it. Therefore, “hereditary government”...
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Book 4, Chapter 3: Elections
...the sovereign’s). In a perfect democracy, random elections would be fairer because serving as a magistrate is “a heavy responsibility” for which it would be unfair to single people out. In...
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Book 4, Chapter 4: The Roman Comitia
...representation from every class division and subdivision, and only the comitia made laws and elected magistrates, so all Romans could vote, and “the Roman people was truly sovereign.” Convened under the...
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Book 4, Chapter 5: The Tribunate
Rousseau explains that sometimes “a special magistrate” called a tribunate is necessary to balance power among the sovereign, the government, and the...
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Book 4, Chapter 6: Dictatorship
...rogue government or easily stopped seditious conspiracies. Instead, it gave power to the consuls (chief magistrates), which was a problem because these consuls had to exceed their normal powers during the...
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