That opening phrase of the Declaration, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." is a literal translation from Jean Jacques.
The Reverend Joseph Parker once said to me, "I always begin strong and I end strong, for only your first phrase and your last will be remembered, if remembered at all, by the average listener."
Jean Jacques begins strong. The first words of the "Social Contract" are, "Man is born free, but is everywhere enslaved."
Does not that remind you of the not-to-be-forgotten opening words of
"The Crisis": "These are the times that try men's souls"?
Rousseau says, "Every individual who opposes himself to the general will ought to be restrained by the whole body, which signifies nothing else than that they force him to be free." That is, he is no longer fit to receive the benefits of the social contract since he refused to pay the price.
The argument of the "Social Contract" is that, in all and every form of government, the people enter into an agreement with the prince or ruler, agreeing to waive the mutual right of freedom in consideration of his seeing to it that laws shall be passed and enforced giving the greatest good to the greatest number.
And this led to that shibboleth of the Revolution, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." Only when it was written by Jean Jacques twenty years before it ran thus, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality—or Death." The final word was too strong for even his fiery followers to digest. But once understood it means that if either prince or pauper refuses to sign the Social Contract and live for all, death then must be his portion. For and in consideration of this interest in the peace and welfare of all, the prince is given honors and is allowed to call himself "a ruler." If, however, at any time the prince should so forget his sacred office as to work for private gain or for a favored few, then he is guilty of a breach of the contract, and the people owe to themselves the duty of deposition or revolution. Just as Nature, when a man's body is no more fit for service, kills the man, so must we kill the office and begin anew.
And this was to cause Thomas Paine to say in the Chamber of Deputies, when the execution of Louis the Sixteenth was under discussion, "I vote to kill the kingly office, not the man."
The following passages taken at random from Jean Jacques might safely be attributed to either Paine, Jefferson or "Junius":
Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it is impossible that it should not have some civil effect; and so soon as it has, the sovereign is no longer sovereign even in secular matters: the priests become the real masters, and kings are only their officers. Whoever dares to say, Beyond the Church there is no salvation, ought to be driven from the State.