Using the following passage from jean-jacques rousseau's 1763 book the social contract to answer the following question: what then is government? it is an intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign to keep them in touch with each other. it is charged with executing the laws and maintaining both civil and political the only will dominating government should be the general will or the law. the government's power is only the public power vested in it. --public domain which quotation from the declaration of independence shows the influence of the idea of the social contract on the founders of the united states? "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." "prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes." "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the british crown."