270 Chapter XI
tryside. More will be said when the time comes to consider the Helvetic Republic
of 1798. It is enough here to observe, as a sign of the complexity of lordships and
jurisdictions, that Switzerland until 1798 had a hundred different tariff zones.
The little democratic revolution at Geneva in the 1760’s has been recounted in
Chapter V. The party of the Burghers and Citizens, who may have composed a
quarter of the population, had clashed with the governing Small Council and
Council of Two Hundred. The Burghers, calling themselves Représentants, had as-
serted the right of the town meeting or General Council to elect, at its own free
choice, the men to sit in the Small Council or executive government. Partisans of
the Small Council were called Négatifs, from the right which they claimed to nega-
tive, or veto, the remonstrances of Burghers or actions of the General Council. A
dilemma had ensued under the “constitution” of 1738, which was “guaranteed” by
France, Zurich, and Bern. To obtain the necessary changes or clarifications in the
constitution, the Négatifs had appealed to the guarantor powers, and the Représent-
ants had asserted, more from the logic of their situation than from the logic of
Rousseau, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people. By the “people” they meant
those who already enjoyed Burgher rights, assembled in the General Council.
There had been a compromise in 1768, a compromise which the young democrat
Delolme refused to accept, but which allowed the government to be carried on.
In 1782 this compromise broke down.^57 The intervening years had not been
quiet. Burghers continued to meet in their “circles,” the neighborhood discussion
groups which had become the instruments of political action. For the first time
also the Natives entered significantly into politics, demanding the political rights
from which they were excluded, but having mainly in mind an occupational and
economic equality from which the laws debarred them. Since it was the Burgher
Représentants, as much as the conservative Négatifs, who wished to keep Natives
out of profitable or prestige- conveying lines of work, the Natives were divided in
their political tactics, some favoring alliance with Représentants against Négatifs,
others the reverse. Most Natives inclined to the Burgher or Représentant party.
The Burgher party became somewhat more liberalized in the seventies. Their
ideas evolved from burgherdom to citizenship. It may be recalled that in 1770 the
Burghers suppressed a Native protest with menacing determination. Whether
from the passage of time, the spread of “enlightenment,” the ideas made so public
by the American Revolution, the growing strength of the Natives, or the need of
allies against the obstinate Négatifs, the Burghers adopted a broader position. After
another Native uprising in 1781, the General Council voted to admit Natives of
the third generation in Geneva to Burgher rights. About 460 Natives would thus
become Burghers, thereby considerably enlarging the General Council, which
hitherto had rarely mustered as many as 1,200 voters. If naturalization after three
generations seems little enough, it nevertheless fundamentally altered the old con-
stitution of Geneva.
The Small Council refused to recognize this wholesale conversion of Natives
into Burghers. Thus the question of authority, or sovereignty, as between the Small
57 For the following paragraphs see E. Chapuisat, La prise d ’armes de 1782 à Geneve (Geneva,
1932).