Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Swiss, 1712 - 1778
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was a Swiss-born Enlightenment philosopher whose political theory influenced American revolutionary thought. In his 1762 work, The Social Contract, Rousseau challenged the divine right of monarchs and argued that legitimate political authority rests on popular sovereignty and the collective will of the citizenry. Thomas Jefferson incorporated these concepts into the 1776 Declaration of Independence, reinforcing the foundational principle that human beings possess inherent equality and that governments derive their just powers solely from the consent of the governed.