James Madison's Contribution to the Enlightenment

The enlightenment era, can be said, produced some of the most critical ideas that clearly impacted the development of democracy. This intellectual period that roughly lasted from the 17th to the 18th century is responsible for producing some of the most brilliant political philosophers. Amongst these philosophers and philosophes were political revolutionaries such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Cesare Baccaria, Baron de Montesquieu, David Hume, and John Locke. The ideas they promoted and would later be adopted by flourishing democracies included the individual’s freedom of expression and religion by Voltaire, the separation of powers and checks and balances by Montesquieu, rights in the field of criminal justice by Baccaria, federalism by David Hume, and the idea of natural rights by John Locke. One of the most critical enlightenment ideas that contributed greatly to the understanding of the role of government was Rousseau’s social contract. This idea was viewed and generally accepted by many contemporary philosophers and seen as genuine and practical. According to Rousseau, legitimate political authority comes only from a Social Contract agreed upon by all citizens for their mutual preservation. The collective grouping of all citizens, or the “sovereign” he states, expresses the general will that aims for the common good. Thomas Paine further explains this point in his essay Rights of man (1791) by writing that government is not a compact between those who govern and those who are governed, but instead it is a compact between the individuals themselves to produce a government.1 According to both, the general will finds its clearest expression in the general and abstract laws of the state2. Furthermore John Locke viewed the Social Contract as a form of giving legitimacy to a government only through the consent of those whom it governs and that the objective of the government is to protect the individual’s natural rights. Paine further explains that a