As Alain Alcouffe and I mentioned in our previous post, a dramatic political showdown was unfolding in real time in the Republic of Geneva during Adam Smith’s sojourn in Switzerland; in fact, as we shall soon see, the high point of this constitutional conflict coincided with the Scottish philosopher’s visit to the Swiss city-state.

In summary, the leading protagonists of this conflict were, on the one side, Geneva’s famed legislative body — the Conseil Général or “General Council”, which purported to be the true source of the republic’s political sovereignty since it represented all the citizens of Geneva — and on the other, the true center of power in Geneva, the city-state’s elite executive-judicial “junta”, the Petit Conseil or “Small Council” (or Council of Twenty-five). Among a number of issues, the central point of constitutional contention at the heart of this power struggle was the scope of the Small Council’s veto power or droit négatif — namely, the right of the Small Council to control what proposals were placed before the General Council. Suffice it to say the General Council wanted a larger role to play in Geneva’s governance — a demand that became louder and more strident during the course of the “Rousseau Affair” — while the Small Council refused to share, let alone give up, any of its constitutional powers and prerogatives. [See generally Angela Bennett, Continuity and conflict : the struggle for political rights in eighteenth-century Geneva, PhD thesis, University of Kent (1995), especially pp. 136-150.]

But as it happens, the triennial election of various officers of the Small Council, including the Auditeurs and the Procureur-Général, was scheduled to take place at the autumn session of the General Council in November 1765. [As an aside, the Procureur-Général was the chief prosecutor or law enforcement officer of the Republic of Geneva, while the auditeurs were his assistants. See generally Raphael Barat, “The introduction of the vote by ballot in the elections of magistrates by the General Council of the Republic of Geneva (1707)”, in Jon Elster, editor, Secrecy and Publicity in Votes and Debates, Cambridge University Press (2015), pp. 72-96.] The way in which past elections were carried out, however, was emblematic of the gross imbalance of power in Geneva’s constitution, for in previous election cycles the Small Council would simply present a slate of pre-approved candidates to the General Council, and the General Council would then rubber-stamp the Small Council’s candidates. (Ibid.) Not this time.

This time, the General Council would use the November 1765 election cycle to strike back and raise the stakes in their ongoing power struggle with the Small Council, or in the words of one historian, the General Council finally “resorted to their one remaining legal and non-violent way to bring the government to see the error of its ways” (Bennett 1995, p. 145). Specifically, the General Council refused to elect any of the names from the Small Council’s slate of pre-approved candidates, voting instead to request a new slate of candidates (“la ligne de nouvelle election“; Bennett 1995, p. 145). This procedural vote and refusal was repeated multiple times until all the names of those eligible for office were exhausted. [See ibid., p. 145 & n. 48. See also Richard Whatmore, Terrorists, Anarchists, and Republicans: The Genevans and the Irish in Time of Revolution, Princeton University Press (2019), p. 92.] As a result of this deliberate inaction, nobody was elected and all the posts remained vacant!

Since no officers were elected, the government of Geneva was now facing a serious constitutional crisis, but how would the members of the Small Council respond to the legal vacuum created by General Council’s deliberate inaction? Would they back down, make concessions, and resolve the crisis in an equitable manner, or would they remain intransigent and paint themselves into a constitutional corner? As Alain Alcouffe and I will explain in our next post, the response of the Small Council would not only up the stakes of this constitutional crisis; it would also fan flames to the fire and produce a dire deadlock in January of 1766 …

(To be continued)