Well, I'm afraid to say that the presentation of the controversy is a bit off balance here.
I have actually read the Leviathan, in my Constitutional Law classes. The case Thomas Hobbes makes just gets advantage of the developed concept of "
homo homini lupus est" (man is man's wolf), bringing the notion that man is inherently a "beast", which's bad features must be kept in check by the governmental power.
The context was that of all-poweful kings raising, and several thinkers trying to justify technically the power they had. Much of the teaching of the time was that the "Kings" were selected by God, and man should obey them in submission to the deity. Hobbes, however, took it a step further, and took away the factor "God" from the equation. He argued that as man is a "beast", the only way to keep man's primal urges in check was by creating a society - conceived by him as "men under an authority". Everyone would submit to the laws of the authority through the "social contract", an inherent pact that all members of society signs up naturally, by enjoying the protection society provides, giving up part of their "inherent liberty" (the freedom to do anything) for a "pragmatic freedom" (the one limited by what was granted by the State - the Leviathan - that would be smaller, but effective against violation).
Basically, he argued that "you chose your leader, now you cope with him". So, you guessed right, guys - Hobbes wrote in defense of "Absolute Kings", like Louis XIV famous claim "I am the State", and his ideas greated influenced the early - and long abandoned - legal doctrine of "The King can do no wrong" or "Irresponsability of the State" - meaning, no matter how much the State was invasive or unfair, it's action was better than leaving men on it's own, and hence, it enjoyed a presumption of being "the best path possible", and than, logically, what was perceived as "wrong" or "unfair" would be so only because people cannot see the big picture, and how things are better that way.
Jean Jacques Rosseau, on the other hand, when released his Famous Masterpiece "The Social Contract", offered a whole other perspective to Hobbesian ideas. He did argued the theory of the "good savage", or "Blanket Table" - there is, man, in the "state of nature" would do no harm because there would be no drives to impulse him in the path of evil - no competition, no disputes, nor anything else that would encourage man to use his abilities in a destructive way.
Living in society, however - a necessity of mankind - would make men competitive, and sectorial, and destructive against other men, leading to a situation of conflict that is virtually identical to the Hobbesian "lupus" setting, only that he acknowledged the environment as a factor of the equation.
Here lies the first problem with the proposed question - for Rosseau was not a naive that failed to perceive the existence of humane wickedness - he just looked for the sources of that wickedness, and he never denied that the setting of a destructive society would necessarily rise (as morality could not develop before the moral dilemmas first came).
The proposal Rosseau offered to the destructive setting much resembled that from Hobbes - the State keeping the wickedness in check - but, see, Rosseau perceived society as any "group of man" - wheter under authority or not - and the existence of relations, of any sort, was enough to caractherize a social setting.
He recognized, than, that society was previous to authority, hence solving a big contradiction of Hobbes' proposal - there is, if there was no society before authority, than there was no one who would be able to empower the authority legitimally.
This little change led to a very different conclusion, for he, than, introduced the notion that authority was not an end in and on itself - but a mean through which society seeked it's goals - that is, balance and peace, granted by governmental power and intervention over destructive urges.
He proposed, than, that as "authority" was but a delegate from "society", if the authority, by abusing the power which was granted to it
by society, became another factor to detract it from reaching it's ends, it would be betraying it's mandate. When that happened, society was legitimate to cancel the delegation given to the authority, restore freedom and select
another authority which better responded to social urges - and also that, when necessary, even means such as revolution were valid, for they aimed nothing more than restoring society as the center of the equation, correcting a distortion represented by an authority that made itself more important than the people it was supposed to represent.
Rosseau's ideas greated influenced several major world events, such as the French Revolution and the American Independence, by providing ideological grounds to the desire to reject tyranny and restore freedom and the opportunity to pursuit happiness without constriction.
Hence, the dichotomy presented in the original post actually does not exist - Hobbes and Rosseau had different axioms, true, but axioms that had a lot of common places and mutual ground, just with presentation and depth enhancing the way perception and development of the consequences of the given ideas should be carried out.
And, given that, I think it's quite clear that Rosseau had a superior understanding of human needs, wishes, and how to handle the abuse of both freedom and authority, the two extremes he tries to balance.
Regards
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