Extolling an Ideal City of Freedom and Self Governance - "Letter to the Republic of Geneva" - Jean Jacques Rousseau

Letter To The Republic of Geneva

This edition of Rousseau's Second Discourse is opened with a letter from him to the Republic of Geneva. He begins by praising them as the best of governments as they have taken the natural equality of man with the inequality brought about by societies and married them to create a public order based in the natural law and for the happiness of its people and good sense. 1 Rousseau, if he could choose, would choose to be born in a country that was small enough where everyone could know everyone else. Where virtue and vice could be seen by all, and where patriotism is a love of real people, not just the land. 

Rousseau Extols the Virtues of Geneva

He wants to be part of a democratic society where there can be unified common good between sovereign and people. He wants to be part of a nation where the law applies equally to everyone and that those laws were the ones chosen by the very same people. 2 He does not want to be part of a newly formed republic as it is more likely to collapse due to the people being used to having their old masters tell them what to do. It takes time for people to establish a new way of being. This does not mean a freedom to do whatever one wants, as this only leads to anarchy and the reestablishment of tyrannical personalities. This taste of democratic freedom must be built overtime and strengthened. 3 He would want a city that was not ambitious to expand itself, nor would be expanded upon, but rather would have alliances to protect their interests. 

Citizens and Magistrates - Mutual Love and Respect

He wants a place where everyone could be part of the law making process, and especially to avoid odd laws which prevents those higher up in the city from participating as well, such as with the Roman plebiscites. 4 Rather, he wants that only the "magistrates" be able to propose laws, and that for these laws to be ratified takes absolute convincing that this law is better than all those of the past and only changed with great solemnity. Laws should not change often at all, lest people make society worse with ill founded changes. These magistrates are needed to keep rule and order, and a pure democracy will fall. Rather, the people should elect representatives for themselves to constitute tribunals to take care of administration and they should only vote on the most important issues as a whole.

"Rather I would have chosen that Republic where the individuals, being content to give sanction to the laws and to decide in a body and upon the report of their chiefs the most important public affairs, would establish respected tribunals, distinguished with care their various departments, elect from year to year the most capable and most upright of their fellow citizens to administer justice and govern the state ..." 5 The magistrates and the people must have totally respect for one another so that reconciliation can happen if there are misunderstandings, not chaos. 

He says that if he could have all those things along with a beautiful setting for this city he would have lived in peace and harmony with his fellow citizens. If Rousseau could not enjoy all this wonder of Geneva then he would address them as such ... 6 saying how he knows how great their city is and how they can enjoy all of these blessings that he just mentioned above. They are not even made soft by too much decadence nor so poor that they need outside help with their economy. And so their great calling is to preserve the good state and happiness which their ancestors handed to them. 7 You now have virtuous and good leaders and so you must honor and protect them and stamp out any disunity and dissention. 8 Do not follow or listen to any leaders who may offer "sinister interpretations and venomous discourses, the secret motives of which are often more dangerous than the acts that are their object." This will cause people to not listen when there may actually be something important to warn the people about. Rather, those good magistrates hold the highest honor of helping a people to govern themselves, and so we ought to love them.

Education - Teachers and Women

Then Rousseau recalls a teacher he had in his youth that formed him to love all of the above things and taught him the great classics. It was this education, he believes, that though one may sin, will always bring them back. 9 "I never recall without the sweetest emotion the memory of the virtuous citizen to whom I owe my being, and who often spoke to me in my childhood of the respect that was due you. I see him still, living from the work of his hands, and nourishing his soul on the most sublime truths. I see Tacitus, Plutarch, and Grotius mingled with the instruments of his trade before him. I see at his side a beloved son, receiving with too little profit the tender instructions of the best of fathers. But if the aberrations of foolish youth made me forget such wise lessons for a time, I have the happiness to feel at last that no matter what inclination one may have toward vice, it is difficult for an education in which the heart is involved to remain forever lost." 

Rousseau then points out that in Geneva even the average man would be a cultured man anywhere else. And that often the Magistrates are one among equals with many of its citizens. 10 Rousseau definitely continually emphasizes the love and respect that should exist between citizens and magistrates. Indeed he thinks that the magistrates of Geneva truly live the Gospel values and are not hypocrites like so many rulers in history were who say they are serving God but are really serving themselves. "Perhaps it behooves the city of Geneva alone to provide the edifying example of such a perfect union between a society of theologians and of men of letters..." 11 

Rousseau then addresses the women of Geneva, saying that they have an important role to play in the well being of the state. He wishes they could participate in government (as he claims they did in Sparta) but they are to be the bonds of peace and the instiller of values in young people, teaching them to morals and duty. "Therefore always be what you are, the chaste guardians of morals and the bonds of peace; and continue to exploit on every occasion the rights of the heart and of nature for the benefit of duty and virtue." 12 He concludes by saying that Geneve may not outwardly appear as awe-inspiring as other places with luxury and pomp and circumstance, but it is the people of Geneva that set it apart and make it great. 13

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1 - Rousseau, Jean Jacques. The First and Second Discourses. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964. Pg. 78

2 - 79 

3 - 80

4 - 81

5 - 82

6 - 83

7 - 84

8 - 85

9 - 86

10 - 87

11 - 88

12 - 89

13 - 90