The Constitution of England

Introduction

ix introduction Jean Louis De Lolme’s The Constitution of England, which first appeared in French in 1771, was a major contribution to eighteenth-century constitutional theory and enjoyed wide currency in and beyond the eras of the American and French Revolutions. Its authority and judgment were invoked in parliamentary debate and in partisan political polemic. John Adams , the American revolutionary leader, constitutional advocate, and later president, praised the work as “the best defence of the political balance of three powers that ever was written.”1 EvenDeLolme’scontemporarycritics were forced to acknowledge “a work which has been honored withthepublic approbation and which certainly possesses great merit.”2 Notwithstanding the reputation and influence that The Constitution of England earned its author, the details of De Lolme’s life remain poorly documented. We rely chiefly on the scanty biographical information provided in his publications and the anecdotal and variable reminiscences assembled by others in the years following his death in 1806.3 1. John Adams, A Defence on the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1797), 1:70. 2. Answer to Mr. De Lolme’s Observations on the Late National EmbarrassmentbyNeptune (London, 1789), 10. 3. The most rigorous effort to authenticate the details of De Lolme’s life and writings is provided by Edith Ruth in Jean Louis de Lolme und sein Werk über die Verfassung Englands , Historische Studien, Heft 240 (Berlin, 1934). Also of importance is Jean-Pierre Machelon, Les idées politiques de J. L. de Lolme (Paris, 1969). The article on De Lolme by Adam I. P. Smith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) contains less detail than the earlier biography by G. P. Macdonell in the original Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1888). x introduction De Lolme’s Life and Early Writings De Lolme was born in Geneva in 1741. The title page of the 1784 edition of The Constitution of England distinguished him as a “Member of the Council of the Two Hundred in the Republic of Geneva.” Service on this political body placed De Lolme within the ranks of Geneva’s most prominent families. By reputation a brilliantstudent,hefollowedfamilytradition and was trained in the law, beginning his professional career in the 1760s, first as a notary and later as an advocate. His customary classical education and more specialized legal learning were plainly of value to his future writing on government and constitutional liberty. But most fateful was the political training De Lolme acquired in his native city in these early years. “As a native of a free Country, I am no stranger to those circumstances which constitute or characterise liberty,” he explained to his English readers. The “Republic of which I am a member” was the setting “in which I formed my principles.”4 In its outward political forms, eighteenth-century Genevawasarepublic of self-governing citizens. For the contemporary enthusiasts of republican liberty, Geneva and its independence offered a welcome exception to a European state system dominated by large and potentmonarchies.Inpractice, however, Geneva’s government had long been an oligarchyof elitefamilies. Political authority operated through a series of citizen councils. Although sovereignty was formally held by a General Council of all citizens, political rule was effectively exercised by two “small councils”—the Council of the Twenty-Five and the Council of the Two Hundred—under the control of the wealthiest and most powerful families. It was these smaller bodies that in practice determined Geneva’s legal and fiscal policies and selected the leading officeholders. Throughout the eighteenth century, Geneva’s rulers faced organized challenges from excluded groups and, in momentsof gravestpoliticalcrisis, depended upon foreign support, particularly from the French monarchy, to sustain their power. Significant episodes of protest occurred in 1707, 1718, 1734–38, 1763–68, 1770, 1781–82, and 1789. These typically centered 4. See below, Constitution of England, introduction, p. 20. introduction xi on a program of republican revival that called for the restoration of the sovereignty of the General Council, an enlargement of the number of citizens entitled to serve on the small councils, and a more equitable legal and fiscal treatment of the great number of propertied residents wholackedthe benefits of full citizenship. In the period just before De Lolme’sbirth,these conflicts had led Geneva’s government to summon military support from France and the cantons of Berne and Zurich to help “mediate” thepolitical crisis between ruling elite...