# Hugo Grotius — The Social Contract character guide

> Hugo Grotius in The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Grotius

**First appearance:** 0006-ii-the-first-societies

## Snapshot

The Dutch jurist whose claim that a people can sell itself into slavery Rousseau dismantles word by word, starting with 'alienate.'

## Who they are

Grotius appears early as the respectable legal authority who argued that individuals may alienate their liberty, and therefore whole peoples may too. Rousseau seizes on the verb: to alienate is to sell, and no people would sell itself to a king who lives off their labor. The exchange is one of the book's sharpest passages, and it establishes the principle that liberty cannot be traded away without ceasing to be human.

## In the story

### [The Social Contract](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/the-social-contract)

Cited as a thinker who denies that all human power is established for the benefit of the governed.

### [II: The First Societies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/ii-the-first-societies)

Quoted for denying that all power is established for the governed and for using fact to justify right, favoring tyrants.

### [Slavery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/iv-slavery)

Cited as the proponent of the idea that a people can alienate their liberty to a king, which Rousseau refutes.

### [V: That We Must Always Go Back to a First Convention](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/v-that-we-must-always-go-back-to-a-first-convention)

Cited as claiming a people can give itself to a king, which Rousseau critiques.

### [Book II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/book-ii)

Referenced in discussions on the right of slavery and the transfer of liberty.

### [II: That Sovereignty Is Indivisible](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/ii-that-sovereignty-is-indivisible)

Criticized for his sophistry in robbing peoples of rights to flatter Louis XIII.

### [How to Check the Usurpations of Government](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/xviii-how-to-check-the-usurpations-of-government)

Cited for the idea that each individual can renounce membership in the State and recover natural liberty.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/chapters/endnotes)

Criticized for treating learned inquiries into public right as merely the history of past abuses.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/characters/grotius
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_social_contract_se/characters