Rousseau believes that people have unalienable rights that each form of government will have to guarantee these rights in order to survive. He finds it of paramount importance that people are able to obtain a status of personal freedom that enables them to express their own political will and to elect a government that will respect the will of the people. This form of government did not exist when the treatise was published in 1762. Rousseau disapproves of the then form of French societal order. He tries to develop a social and political concept that solves the tension between balancing the individual rights of people against the restrictions they had to endure. Rousseau asks for a form of government that will defend and protect the individual person and its property...
It is Rousseau's vision that people have equal rights under a government that exercises control over people in a democratic way allowing citizens to take influence in the formation of the political will. In his opinion, the concept of personal freedom of people is eventually rooted in the nature of mankind (see Chapter 1 Para 2). Each human being by nature has both a free will, and a strong instinct of self- preservation. Whereas the common will is the best for the general public, the will of the individual is the best for the individual. Rousseau cites
