1823 Feb 18

Greece

Beginning

It being indispensably necessary to the attainment of this end that the persons chosen by the greatest number to frame the governing arrangements be persons by whom it is most likely that the will of the greatest number will be conformed to /done/, it is no less so that this same disposition and endeavour should have place in equal degree on the part of all other persons employed in the business of government in the management of the common concerns

As the greatest number can not themselves find time for carrying on in detail the business of government, but are on that account under the necessity of conveying that task to some other persons of their choice, so is it still with the /any/ minor assemblage of persons who for that purpose will have been the objects of their choice. The delegates of the people can no more find time for carrying on the business of government in its utmost detail than the people themselves. Hence comes the need of another set of functionaries whose function will consist in giving execution and effect to the will of the delegates of the people as the function of the delegates of the people consists in the giving execution and effect to the general will of the people by whom they have been chosen for that purpose.

The people at large the whole body of the members of the community taken in the aggregate call them then the supreme constitutive power: constitutive viz of the body on whose will as manifested in detail shall at all times depend the manner in which the business of government in detail is carried on: say the supreme operative

But the supreme operative can not of /by/ itself give execution and effect to the emanations of its own will: it requires the assistance another person or set of persons for this purpose: call this set of persons the Supreme Executive power