John Locke was an English philosopher, economist, and physician of the Enlightenment period. In his views on unwritten natural law as the basis of formal constitutional law, Locke made the social contract the basis of his plea for popular sovereignty, the idea that the monarch or the government should reflect the will of the people. Thus, for Locke, the social contract forms the agreement between the ruler and the people, and it is precisely the limit to the powers and attributions that the ruler has over its citizens.
In the United States, the social contract is embodied in the Constitution, which is the fundamental legal text of the nation that is responsible for recognizing civil rights and limiting the powers of the government.
