Chapter 1: A General Idea

I distinguish laws which form political liberty in its relation to the constitution from those which form political liberty in relation to the citizen. The former will be the subject of the present book. I will deal with the second in the following book.

Chapter 2: Different Meanings Assigned to the Word Liberty

There is no word which has received more different meanings, and which has struck minds in so many ways, than that of liberty. Some have taken it as the facility of disposing of him to whom they had awarded tyrannical power; other as the capacity to elect those whom they owe to obey. Others have taken it as the right to be armed and to be able to practice violence. These have taken it as the privilege of only being governed by a man of their own nation, or by their own laws (aa). A certain people for a long time took liberty as the habit of wearing a long beard (bb).

These have assigned the name to one form of government and excluded all other forms from it. They who had tasted republican government assigned it to this government. They who had enjoyed monarchical government placed it under the monarchy (cc). In sum, each has called liberty the government which was conformed to his customs or his inclinations. And since, in a republic, they do not always have before their eyes, and in so striking a manner, the instruments of the ills about which they complain; and since even the laws appear to speak more while the enforcers of the laws speak less there, one usually places liberty under republics and has excluded it from monarchies. Finally, since in democracies the people seem to do almost what they wish, some have assigned liberty to these kinds of governments, and have confused the people's power with the people's liberty.

Chapter 3: That Which Is Liberty

It is true that, in democracies, the people appear to do whatever they wish, but political liberty does not consist of doing whatever one wishes. In a state—that is, in a society in which there are laws—liberty can only consist in being able to do that which one ought to wish and in not being coerced to do that which one ought not to wish.