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?