Evaluation of Rousseau's Theory. Rousseau was the apostle of popular sovereignty and the secret of his political philosophy is found in the substitation for "a sovereign" of "the sovereign." He justified revolutions against arbitrary rule and was the pioneer to preach the ideals of democracy. Sidgwick says that the characteristic of Rousseau's revolutionary doctrine of popular sovereignty is that it rests on three very simple principles: "(1) That men are by nature free and equal; (2) that the rights of government must be based on some contract freely entered into" by these equal and independent individuals and (3) that the only contract at once just to the individuals becomes an indivisible part of a body that retains an inalienable right of determining its own internal constitution and legislation-a sovereign people." Rousseau brings into prominence the idea of consent and establishes once for all that will, not force, is the basis of the State. He also champions the cause of direct democracy by vesting the legislative power in the people Rousseau's political teachings had a profound appeal for the fathers of the Constitutions of the United States of America and France. To quote Dunning, Rousseau's spirit and "dogmas, however disguised and transformed, are seen everywhere both in the speculative system and in the governmental organisations of the stirring era that followed his death." Rousseau died in 1778.