Inquiry Concerning Political Justice by William Godwin 1793 INQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MODERN MORALS AND HAPPINESS BOOK I: OF THE POWERS OF MAN CONSIDERED IN HIS SOCIAL CAPACITY CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The object proposed in the following work is an investigation concerning that form of public or political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action, extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most to conduce to the general benefit. How may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved? How may the security each man ought to possess, as to his life, and the employment of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion? How may the indi...
BOOK V OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWER CHAPTER IX OF A PRESIDENT WITH REGAL POWERS Enumeration of powers -- that of appointing to inferior offices -- of pardoning offenses -- of convoking deliberative assemblies -- of affixing a veto to their decrees -- Conclusion. -- The title of king eliminated. -- Monarchial and aristrocratical systems, similarity of their effects. Still monarchy it seems has one refuge left. "We will not," say some men, "have an hereditary monarchy, we acknowledge that to be an enormous injustice. We are not contented with an elective monarchy, we are not contented with a limited one. We admit the office however reduced, if the tenure be for life, to be an intolerable grievance. But why not have kings, as we have magistrates and legislative assemblies, renewable by frequent elections? We may then change the holder of the office as of...