The paper discusses how Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the European theorists who has been cited as an inspiration for the
Founding Fathers as they wrote the U.S. Constitution and created the American form of
government. The paper shows that in some ways, however, they were using what Rousseau wrote as a beginning point and then finding a governmental form to refute some of Rousseau's
concerns for what representative government might become if not controlled. The paper describes how the authors of "The Federalist Papers" ( Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay) answered certain of these concerns, especially regarding concerns about factions and the effect of differences of opinion on the sovereign.