[mngharry]

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT,
OR PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL RIGHT
by Jean Jacques Rousseau
1762
Translated by G. D. H. Cole

Surprised at not being able to find this important text here, and wishing to read a well-formatted version of it, I labored over this one for an hour or so. Most of the work went into hyperlinking the notes.

From Wikipedia:
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is the book in which Rousseau theorized about the best way in which to set up a political community in the face of the problems of commercial society which he had already identified in his Discourse on Inequality (1754).

The Social Contract was a progressive work that helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate; as Rousseau asserts, only the people, in the form of the sovereign, have that all powerful right.