3 The Unitary Democratic Revolution (1795- 1798) When, after the French invasion, the Patriot movement again took control of the Republic in January 1795, it became clear that many revolutionaries had fundamentally changed their mind about how the state should be reformed. This change was especially notable in the new provincial assembly of Holland. On 31 January 1795, the provincial governors claimed: All people are born with equal rights, and these natural rights cannot be taken away from them. These rights consist of equality, freedom, safety, property, and resistance against oppression. (...) Since all people are equal, all are eligible for election in any office and administration without any other reason of preference than merit and skill. (...) Sovereignty resides with the entire people, and consequently no part of this people can usurp it.1 Although certainly not everyone in the Patriot movement fully agreed with these claims, especially not within the new Amsterdam government, it is evident that a new ideal of political organisation had taken hold of the Dutch revolutionary struggle. By claiming that ‘all people are born with equal rights’, the provincial government directly challenged the local system of privileges and the particularistic corporate state structure. Moreover, by maintaining that everyone could be elected in a political office, it pointed in the direction of a liberal democratic system. And finally, by arguing that sovereignty resided with the entire people and not any specific part, the provincial assembly, as it made clear in the following months, rejected the sovereignty of individual cities, and provinces, opening the door for a centralisation of authority. All in all, the provincial governors proposed a more fundamental reform in terms of democratisation and centralisation, than anyone had ever suggested during the 1780s. In the years after the revolution of January 1795, the Republic was indeed reformed according to the ideas of the provincial governors of Holland. First, the status of the provincial governors themselves was changed. They no longer represented the local administrations, but the entire people of Holland. Second, in March 1796, a National Assembly was created. The new representatives were chosen through general elections, in which the majority of the adult male population could participate. In contrast to the representatives of the States General, the new members of parliament represented the Dutch people as a whole, and not the provincial or local governments. Finally, in May 1798, a unitary democratic constitution was established, which confirmed the national 1 Alle menschen met gelyke rechten geboren worden, en dat deze natuurlyke rechten hun niet kunnen ontnomen worden. Dat deze rechten bestaan in gelykheid, vryheid, veiligheid, eigendom en tegenstand aan onderdrukking. (...) Dat, daar alle menschen gelyk zyn, allen verkiesbaar zyn tot alle ampten en bedieningen zonder eenige andere redenen van voorkeur dan die van deugden en bekwaamheden. (...) Dat de souvereiniteit by het geheele volk berust, en dus geen gedeelte van het volk zich dezelve kan aanmatigen (Jaarboeken der Bataafsche Republiek, vol. I (Amsterdam: Wessing en Van der Hey, 1795-98), 143-45). 62 3 The Unitary Democratic Revolution (1795-1798) representative system. Moreover, it officially eliminated the local corporations and early modern systems of privileges, and concentrated political sovereignty in the central state. Thus, a unitary democratic revolution seemed to have taken place. Yet, when we investigate how the Republic was transformed, it becomes clear that the methods of reform were far from democratic. To confirm the change in its status, for example, the assembly of Holland had to imprison part of the resisting Amsterdam government. The National Assembly could only be created after the elected governors of Friesland had been replaced through a rebellion. And, the unitary democratic constitution was established through a coup in the National Assembly, and the subsequent purging of provincial and local governments, as well as of the voting assemblies throughout the Republic. Hence, there was a clear contradiction between the method and the content of reform. This chapter examines this contradiction. It starts out by analysing why many Dutch revolutionaries embraced the unitary democratic state model, less than a decade after the Patriot Revolt. Subsequently, we will investigate how the resistance against this model was overruled on the local, provincial, and central state levels, and why this could only be done through a series of coups. The Introduction of the Unitary Democratic State Model The French revolutionary ideal of unitary democracy deeply affected the Dutch Patriots. This can be partly explained by the negative outcome of the preceding Patriot Revolt. After this revolt had been crushed in 1787 by the invasion of the Prussian army and the restoration of the privileges of the Stadholder, many Patriots, after a period of commiseration, started to ask themselves what had gone wrong. Obviously, they had been unable to overthrow the Stadholderian regime. Moreover, in many cities and provinces, the Patriot Revolt had created political chaos and anarchy. The French Revolution, on the other hand, seemed to be a huge success. Consequently the Patriots began to reconsider their own reform program in the light of the unitary democratic ideal which was introduced by the French Revolution. This process of reflection was facilitated by the direct contact of numerous Patriots with the French Revolution.2 In 1787, several thousand Patriots fled to France, and the Southern Netherlands to escape the Orangist reaction. The majority of these refugees were middle class craftsmen, or shopkeepers.3 Especially many members of the Patriot exercise associations had decided to flee the country, as they expected to be held accountable for the violence against the Orangists.4 Among the exiles were also several Amsterdam regents, such as Jan Bernd Bicker. On 15 October 1787, after the Prussian army had occupied Amsterdam, Bicker, Johan Geelvinck, Cornelis van der Hoop, and Balthasar Elias Abbema, departed for the Southern Netherlands. Their fears for an Orangist reaction were certainly not unfounded, as Patriots were hunted down, and their houses plundered, in cities throughout Holland. For 2 J.G.M.M. Rosendaal, Bataven!: Nederlandse vluchtelingen in Frankrijk, 1787-1795 (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2003). 3 Ibid., 156. 4 Ibid., 154-55. The Democratic Paradox 63 example, passing through Delft, Bicker reports: ‘we heard violence everywhere, and occasionally the breaking of glass.’5 After the French Revolution broke out, many Patriots ended up in France. In close contact with the French Revolution, the exiled Patriots started to reflect on the political structure of the Republic. The French influence was clearly visible in the Patriot reform plans that were developed in the early 1790s. For example, in February 1793, the Amsterdam regent Balthasar Elias Abbema and the nobleman Van der Capellen van de Marsch launched a plan which proposed to establish a strong executive government of seven Ministers, supervised by a popular assembly. In their scheme, all male adult burghers, with the exclusion of servants and people on poor relief, should be given the vote. Moreover, they emphasised that any new constitution would have to be ratified by the united sovereign Batavian people.6 This plan diverged substantially from the designs which the Patriot regents, or indeed any other revolutionary group, had proposed during the 1780s. Abbema and Van der Capellen departed from the idea that the revolution should reinforce local autonomy and restore the system of privileges. Instead, they looked to establish a unitary democratic state. Meanwhile in the Republic itself, Patriots were also influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. Although much more cautiously than the exiles, these revolutionaries started to formulate proposals to abolish the system of privileges and move beyond the Union of Utrecht. Especially influential was Pieter Paulus’ Verhandeling over de vrage in welke zin kunnen de menschen gezegd worden gelyk te zyn? (Treatise on the Question in which Sense can People Considered to be Equal), which was published in 1793 and reprinted four times in subsequent years. Paulus, a lawyer from Rotterdam, who in 1775 had still passionately defended the Union of Utrecht, now argued for universal freedom and equality. Combining a philosophy of natural rights and a doctrine of Christian equality, he maintained: In the state of nature, one man does not have more rights over his fellow men, nor over the land, seas, rivers and waters, or any of the natural products of the earth, than other men. All have an equal right to use, as much as each needs to maintain oneself. The earth with all that it holds can only be characterised as a gift from the general father. (...) Natural society is a society of equality and freedom.7 This statement was a direct attack on the system of privileges, which had always been protected by the Union of Utrecht. 5 hoorden wij overal veel geweld en hier en daar glaazen inslaan. (GAA, arch. Bicker (arch. nr. 195), inv. nr. 151 (Aantekeningen van biografische en politieke gebeurtenissen door Jan Bernd Bicker, lopend over de jaren 1763- 1798). 6 Rosendaal, Bataven!, 504-530; Schama, 154. 7 De eene mensch derhalven heeft in den staat der natuur by zyne geboorte geen meer regt verkregen over zynen medemensch, noch op den eigendom der aarde, der zeeën, rivieren en wateren, die op de aarde zyn, gelyk ook niet op alle derzelver natuurlyke voordbrengselen, dan de andere mensch; maar allen hebben een gelyk regt, om daarvan te gebruiken, zoo veel als aan een ieder tot deszelfs onderhoud noodzaaklyk is. De aarde met alles wat daarop en in is kan niet anders worden aangemerkt, dan als een geschenk van den algemeenen vader. (...) De natuurlyke maatschappy is eene maatschappy van gelykheid en vryheid (P. Paulus, Verhandeling over de vrage: in welken zin kunnen de menschen gezegd worden gelyk te zyn? en welke zyn de regten en pligten, die daaruit voordvloeien? (Haarlem: C.