Rousseau Social Contract

Lawrence Vodopivec 9/22/17

Ap Government Mrs. Vodopivec Essay To become a nation, there must be a strong single branch of government with an approved set of laws to set the foundation to grow. The United States is a prime example on how a strong government and laws shaped this nation to become great and successful. However this task was not easy because as a nation we struggled to write and make a strong set of laws to both become a nation and set a standard as a nation. In order for this to happen, we as a nation turned to the philosophers Montesquieu, Locke, and Rousseau

Some of these opinions and freedoms include slavery, religion, and everyday individual rights and responsibilities. When we started as a nation we struggled with the issue of slavery. Ever since this country started we faced the issue of slavery because of the southern colonies belief of slavery as a way of life. On the Declaration of Independence the delegates brought the issue up and in the end came to the conclusion to keep slavery because of property issues and as a nation needed to respect each others belief in order to become one nation. The same issue popped up when the Virginia Declaration of Right was needed to be decided. The representatives referred to Rousseau sayings of social contract on how “Man was born free, but walks everywhere with chains” and said this issue will always follow us until we end it. Another example is when Rousseau stated the as people we need to push away our personal life, under the general wills, and focus on property laws that conclude we can not alienate a certain group of people in order to assure goods, and a large growth of wealth. However, this was overlooked because the issue of representation. The south was under populated then the north and requested that slaves be counted in order to fulfil Rousseau idea of involvement of the people in decisions, thus creating the ⅗ compromise which

This applies into two different areas of government and society. This fundamental idea of how to create laws and how they apply is set up for the sole factor to help give power to people and limit the control of the government. Montesquieu stated that when setting up a structured set of laws, a nation must remain aware of how it will benefit the people and the ability to grow as a nation as a result of these laws. A prime example of this is the U.S Constitution. The U,S Constitution is the structure to help guide the government in a positive direction when making a document that clearly states each right the American people have and is set up as a decision. However this is also backed up with Montesquieu saying of people's voice. A prime example is Thomas Paine “Common sense” which describes the role of the government in everyday life and how the government should function in the U.S (United States). Thomas Paine wrote this book to show and educate the American people on how civilians play a key role in the government, by electing their voice just like Montesquieu stated. This all still plays out in our everyday life here in the modern day like the people voice on trump, and local government. Montesquieu idea of creating laws also applies to local government in the idea that from the constitution, we need to base the state/