Madison And Rousseau: A Comparative Analysis

Political unions define our lives. They are the basis for the laws that govern our actions and, perhaps, even our thoughts. So long as governments exist, people must work to discover their ideal structure. James Madison, in “Federalist Paper Number 10” and “A Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in The Social Contract, each try to determine this structure, and they both assume that stability is vital to an ideally functioning society. Nevertheless, when it comes to the government’s power, Madison and Rousseau have little in common. Madison believes that the government is bound by a “great Barrier” which defends the individual's’ rights and that any government breaching this barrier becomes a tyrant. In stark contrast, Rousseau claims that when people join together
Whereas Madison asserts that the State has no say over a person’s relationship with the Creator, Rousseau only rejects certain State religions on technical grounds and eventually concludes that society should demand a significant religious test. It is surprising that given Madison and Rousseau’s uniform goal, a stable society, they should come up with such widely varying methods for achieving it. One may be tempted to suggest that, unlike Rousseau, Madison considers individual rights to be more important than the proper functioning of society. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that Madison and Rousseau's general disagreement on State power stems from a more fundamental dispute over how society works. According to Madison, society exists with a certain power and then instills this power in the government, while Rousseau argues that it is the creation of a government which makes society materialize. These disparate views on the directionality of government and society directly lead to Madison and Rousseau’s other