Abstract: The classical liberalists such as Edmund Burke and Constant de Rebecque usually magnify the difference of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, regarding Locke as one of the founders of liberalism and Rousseau as an advocate of despotism. This is a serious misunderstanding for Rousseau’s political philosophy, for they do not interpret The Social Contract as a whole, but just understand it by twos and threes. Actually, if we read the book carefully faithfully, we will find that Rousseau also recognize human rights and guard against the dangers of government’s usurping the sovereign. He not only defined strictly the concepts of general will, the whole body and sovereign which are misunderstood repeatedly, but also design some projects to confine the power of government so as to realize the general will.

Key words: Rousseau, the social contract, despotism, freedom