A Clash with Democracy 101
times refused to elect any Syndics. That is, the Small Council repeatedly offered
candidates, chosen from its own body as required by law, and the General Council
refused them all. The main demand of the Représentants was no longer to have
representations referred to the General Council. The main demand was now to
elect only officials acceptable to the Burghers. The Act of 1738 prescribed that
Syndics must come from the Small Council, but also that the General Council
could “reject them, all or in part.”
The issue was thus fundamental, and clearcut. Patricians and Burghers flatly
disagreed on the meaning of the constitution and laws of Geneva. The Négatifs
insisted on the right to veto representations, and on the necessity that some mem-
bers from the Small Council be chosen as Syndics. The Représentants affirmed
that representations could not be vetoed, and that the General Council could reject
candidates any number of times, “all or in part.”
It was thus necessary to define or change the law—the very essence of sovereign
power. For this purpose the Genevan aristocracy appealed to outside powers—to
Bern, Zurich, and France. The Burgher party declared that foreigners had nothing
to do with it; that only the citizens of Geneva could be the last court of appeal on
the interpretation of its law.
The Guarantor powers met. Bern and Zurich were inclined to listen to the
Représentants; France was not. As Choiseul wrote to the “Magnificent Lords of
Bern and Zurich,” the King of France could not stand by while the Représentants
at Geneva overthrew “the orders in the State” and established an “absolute De-
mocracy” under color of the will of the people.^24 When the Représentants tried to
get a memorial explaining their position transmitted to the conference of the
Guarantors, the Small Council refused to transmit it. It was hardly necessary to
transmit it formally, came the reply, since the Représentants had published it any-
way. And they must not antagonize France. The Guarantors soon ruled in favor of
the Geneva patriciate.
What were the arguments that the Répresentants wished to lay before the
Guarantors? That they were not innovators or rebels. That the law and history of
Geneva were on their side. That the Small Council at Geneva would be “sovereign”
if it could reject representations at will; but that it was really not sovereign, but
only an executive. That the right to have Syndics approved by the people was the
supreme guarantee of their liberties. That if the Small Council prevailed, there
would be “Masters and Subjects, but there would be no more Citizens.”^25
To their own governing magistrates the Représentants addressed other argu-
ments also. That it was unwise to appeal to outsiders in domestic affairs. That mag-
istrates would be the stronger if they relied on their own citizens instead of relying
24 A letter from Choiseul to the cantons of Bern and Zurich, dated February 20, 1767, has been
copied in longhand into a volume of pamphlets on disputes at Geneva at this time; the volume, appar-
ently once the property of a Genevan interested in these disputes, is now in the Princeton University
Library, volume 16 of a series on Geneva.
25 Adresse des citoyens et bourgeois représentants de Genève au Magnifique Conseil des Vingt- Cinq de
ladite Ville, avec le mémoire qui l ’accompagnait, remis aux Syndics le 19 Mai 1767 par les vingt- quatre Com-
missaires des Représentants et trois Députés de chacun des douze Cercles. Quotation from p. 20.