The Swiss Republic

Prior to the year 1798, the condition of a Swiss Canton was that of a great feudal lord, with an aggregate of many separate seigniorial properties; acquired partly by conquest, partly by purchase. In the town Cantons, such as Bern, Basel, and Zurich, the town was the lord, and the country districts were attached to each as dependent properties. In the rural Cantons, such as Uri and Schwyz, it was an aggregate of democratic communities, which exercised lordship over other dependent communities in their neighborhood. The conquered districts, instead of being created into new Cantons, remained subject, in some cases to individual Cantons, in others to associations of Cantons for their members jointly. In the rustic communities the government was a pure democracy; in the cities it was tempered with a small mixture of aristocracy. Each Canton had a separate coinage, its batzen and rapps, kreutzers and schillings, sous and centimes, that would not pass beyond its frontier.45 Each Canton had its own agents accredited to foreign powers. Each Canton kept a custom-house, and manned a tower at every bridge, at which each load of grass, butt of wine, sack of corn, and pound of cheese that passed the boundary was taxed. Every Canton was a distinct body, independent from any other, and exercising the sovereign power within itself; looking upon the rest as mere allies to whom it was bound only by such acts to which it had consented, and when any new thing not comprehended in this agreement happened to arise, each Canton retained the power of determining the matter for itself. The idea that the minority of Cantons was bound by the decision of the majority took root slowly, and internal affairs depended for settlement on remonstrance and mediation. They were kept together by the peculiarity of their topographical position, by their individual weakness, by their fear of powerful neighbors, by the few sources of contention among a people of such simple and homogeneous manners, and by their joint interest in their dependent possessions. The conditions of the country and of its society contributed to divide instead of to unite the different Cantons. Mountains and lakes separated them into almost distinct nationalities; they were peopled by different races, with differences of language, religion, customs, industries, material interest, and social development,—more than a hundred parcels of territory, each having its separate history, and in many cases a far greater difference between the inhabitants than between the people of Maine and Texas, of Massachusetts and California, for they were a polyglot people without a community of language, to which, as a cohesive force, nothing can compare, especially in a democratic state governed by opinion expressed through universal suffrage. Many were the difficulties and dangers through which the Cantons had to struggle to break up this system and overcome these causes of dissension. This was gradually accomplished by the principles of confederation, judiciously and temperately applied to the circumstances of the country.

The Swiss Cantons of to-day have very much the political organism of the United States. They are sovereign in so far as their sovereignty is not limited by the federal constitution; and as such they exercise all the rights which are not delegated to the federal government. The Cantons are units of a federal state, possessed within certain limits of independent and supreme power. The Swiss constitution, after guaranteeing to the Cantons their sovereignty, their territory, their constitutions, etc. (as pointed out in the chapter on the constitution), again and again reverts to the rights, powers, and duties of the Canton with that remarkable detail which characterizes the text of that instrument in everything it touches. These cantonal provisions are, viz.:

1. The Cantons have the right to make conventions among themselves upon legislative, administrative, or judicial subjects; in all cases they shall bring such conventions to the attention of the federal officials, who are authorized to prevent their execution if they contain anything contrary to the Confederation or to the rights of the Cantons. Should such not be the case, the respective Cantons may demand the co-operation of the federal authorities in their execution.

2. By exception, the Cantons preserve the right to conclude treaties with foreign powers, respecting the administration of public property, and border and police intercourse; but such treaties shall contain nothing contrary to the Confederation or to the rights of the Canton.

3. Official intercourse between the Cantons and foreign governments or their representatives shall take place through the Federal Council. But the Cantons may deal directly with the subordinate officials and officers of a foreign state in regard to the subjects enumerated (in Section 2).

4. In the case of sudden danger of foreign attack, the authorities of the Canton threatened shall request the aid of other members of the Confederation, and shall immediately notify the federal government, without prejudice, however, to the action of the latter. The Cantons so summoned are bound to give aid. The expenses shall be borne by the Confederation.

5. In case of internal disturbance, or when danger threatens from another Canton, the authorities of the Canton threatened shall immediately notify the Federal Council, in order that it may take the necessary measures within the limits of its power, or may summon the Federal Assembly. In urgent cases the authorities of the Canton notifying the federal government of its action, may ask the aid of other Cantons, to which the latter are bound to respond. If the cantonal government is unable to call for aid, the federal authority, having the power, may, and if the safety of Switzerland is endangered shall, intervene without requisition. In case of federal intervention, the federal authorities shall take care that the provisions of the constitution guaranteeing the sovereignty of the Cantons be observed. The expenses shall be borne by the Canton asking the aid or occasioning federal intervention, except when the Federal Assembly otherwise decides on account of special circumstances.

6. In the cases mentioned (Sections 4 and 5), every Canton is bound to afford undisturbed passage for the troops. The troops shall immediately be placed under federal command.

7. The Cantons may require proofs of competency from those who desire to practise the liberal professions; federal legislation may provide for certificates of competency valid for the whole Confederation.

8. Cantons, under the supervision of the Confederation, shall enforce the federal laws relating to weights and measures.

9. Every citizen of a Canton is a Swiss citizen. As such (after furnishing evidence of his right to vote) he can take part at his place of residence in all federal elections and votes. No one shall exercise political rights in more than one Canton. Every Swiss citizen shall enjoy where he is domiciled all the rights of the citizens of the Canton, as also all the rights of the citizens of the Commune. He shall, however, have no share in the common property of the citizens or of the corporation; nor shall he exercise the right to vote in matters pertaining purely to such affairs unless the Canton by legislation has otherwise provided. In cantonal and communal affairs he gains the right to vote after a residence of three months. The cantonal laws relating to the right of Swiss citizens to settle outside the Cantons in which they were born, and to vote on communal questions, are subject to the approval of the Federal Council.

10. No Canton shall expel from its territory one of its own citizens, nor deprive him of his rights, whether acquired by birth or settlement (origine ou cité).

11. Every Swiss citizen shall have the right to settle at any place within Swiss territory, if he possesses a certificate of origin or some similar paper. In exceptional cases the right of settlement may be refused to, or withdrawn from, those who, in consequence of a penal conviction, are not entitled to civil rights. The right of settlement may, moreover, be withdrawn from those who, in consequence of serious misdemeanors, have been repeatedly punished; and also from those who become a permanent charge upon public charity, and to whom their Commune or Canton of origin refuses adequate assistance after having been officially asked to grant it. In Cantons where the system of local relief obtains, the permission to settle, if it relates to natives of the Canton, may be made dependent on the condition that the parties are able to work, and have not hitherto been a permanent charge upon public charity in their previous place of residence. Every expulsion on account of poverty must be approved by the cantonal government, and previous notice given to the government of the Canton of origin. A Canton in which a Swiss establishes his domicile shall not require security nor impose any special obligations for such establishment. Nor shall the Commune in which he settles require from him other contributions than those which it requires from its own citizens. A federal law shall fix the maximum fee to be paid the registration office for a permit to settle.

12. Persons settled in Switzerland shall, as a rule, be subjected to the jurisdiction and legislation of their domicile in all that pertains to their personal status and property rights. Federal law shall determine the application of this principle, and shall also make the necessary regulations to prevent double taxation of a citizen.

13. A marriage contracted in any Canton or in a foreign country, according to the laws there prevailing, shall be recognized as valid throughout the Confederation.

14. The Cantons by law shall provide against all abuse of the freedom of the press, but such legislation shall be subject to the approval of the Federal Council.

15. Citizens shall have the right to form associations, so far as they are not, either in their purpose or methods, illegal or dangerous to the state. The Canton by law shall take the measures necessary for the suppression of abuses.

16. All the Cantons are bound to treat the citizens of the other confederated states like their own citizens, both in their legislation and in judicial procedure.

17. Civil judgments, definitely pronounced in any Canton, may be executed anywhere in Switzerland.

18. The exit duty on property leaving one Canton for another (Abzugsrechte; la traite foraine) is hereby abolished, as well as rights of first purchase (Zugrechte; droit de retrait) by citizens of one Canton against those of another Canton.46

19. The administration of justice remains with the Cantons, save as affected by the powers of the Federal Tribunal.

20. The Cantons may, by correspondence, exercise the right of initiative as to measures in either council of the Federal Assembly.

The duty of the federal government to intervene for the enforcement of its guarantee of the “constitutional rights of citizens” in the Cantons has been declared by the Federal Council in these words: “When complaints are made regarding the violation of the constitution in a Canton, and these are brought before the federal authorities, the latter become in duty bound to investigate them and to form a decision as to their foundation or want of foundation, and as to necessary further regulations. For the Confederation guarantees the constitutional rights of the citizen as well as the rights of the authorities. The earlier articles of union also guaranteed the constitutions, but this guarantee was otherwise explained, and many complaints of unconstitutional proceedings and circumstances were raised and disregarded. It was desired that these should be no longer endured, and there was demanded an effective guarantee against violations of the constitution. Thus arose Article 5 of the federal constitution, which guaranteed with almost pedantic care the rights of the nation and the constitutional rights of the citizen. It would, in fact, be a remarkable relapse into the old view and order of things, a striking denial of the principles contained in Article 5, if we were to assume that, in case of a formally presented complaint, the federal authorities were free to interfere or not. We hold rather that in such cases the federal authorities are obliged to take up the complaints and render a decision regarding them.”

If a cantonal law violates the federal constitution or a federal law, the Federal Tribunal will declare it invalid; but in some cases recourse must be had to the Federal Council. The protection guaranteed by the constitution applies to disturbances of the peace within a Canton, to attacks of one Canton on another, or to a foreign attack. The appeal, as a rule, is to the Federal Council, exceptionally to other Cantons; with the existing facilities for communication with the Federal Council, aid is now demanded exclusively from that body. This feature in the relation of the general government to the Canton, and Canton to Canton, is very different from that of the United States to the State, and State to State. The State is more independent than the Canton of this external interference. It is not obliged to obey the summons of any other State for help; it has, in fact, no right to render any such aid. The government in the United States may not intervene even to preserve order in a State except on the request of the legislature or the executive of the State.

A special federal law enumerates the crimes for which one Canton may demand from another the extradition of criminals. It embraces both statutory and common-law crimes, and only stops at the limitation fixed by the constitution, which declares that extradition may not be rendered obligatory for political offences and those of the press. But extradition may be refused, in any case, of persons who have acquired citizenship, or who have settled in a Canton, when this Canton binds itself to try and punish the accused according to its own law; or allows a sentence already pronounced in another Canton to be executed by its own officials.

The Cantons, not being limited by the terms of the federal constitution, are left sovereign in matters of civil law (except as regards the civil capacity of persons), the law of land, land rights, descent and distribution, criminal law, cantonal and local police, organization of the Communes, public works in general, organization of schools (within limits of the constitution), the conclusion of conventions with each other (called concordats), respecting matters of administration, police, etc. The changes introduced by the present constitution have had the effect to supplant many of the cantonal laws, often very dissimilar and conflicting, by federal laws applicable to the whole Confederation; establishing a uniformity upon many important relations between the citizens and the state. Revisions of the fundamental laws of the Cantons have been frequent; most of the cantonal constitutions are of a recent date. From 1830 to 1874 there have been twenty-seven total or partial revisions of the cantonal constitutions. In a large measure these were required to harmonize them with the federal constitution, first of 1848 and then of 1874. An amendment to a cantonal constitution becomes valid only when ratified by the federal authorities; no concrete case being necessary to test it,—the Swiss procedure to assure the supremacy of the federal constitution being political, not judicial. Cantonal constitutions present an infinite variety in their organisms and operations; but it will be sufficient to give the general features of one of the two distinctive types, the representative system; the other, the Landsgemeinde or open Assembly, composed of all the people possessing votes, is reserved for a separate chapter. In the Cantons of the representative system the legislative department consists of but a single house, called the Greater or Grand Council (Grosser Rath), and in a few of the Cantons known as the Kantonsrath or Landrath. The members are elected by direct popular vote, and, with few exceptions, by the secret ballot; from electoral districts and by scrutin de liste. The average representation is about one to every one thousand inhabitants. In a few Cantons, representation is not based upon the population, but is determined by the number of active citizens; and in the Canton of Luzern, the number of representatives is fixed by the constitution without any regard to the population, or provision for future reapportionment. Every vote-possessing citizen is ordinarily eligible for the Greater Council; the last vestiges of property-qualification having disappeared. The Canton of Geneva limits eligibility to those who have attained their twenty-sixth year. In some Cantons functionaries salaried by the state are excluded. There is a curious diversity presented in the federal and cantonal age-qualification. A citizen of the Grisons attains political majority for cantonal electoral purpose at the age of seventeen, or three years before he can participate in federal elections. In the Canton of Geneva the citizen only attains his political majority for cantonal purpose at the age of twenty-one, or one year after he is a voter at federal elections; and a Genevese can be a member of the Federal Assembly or the federal supreme court or even President of the Confederation six years before he is eligible to his cantonal legislature.

The terms in the Greater Council vary from one year to five. In many of the Cantons the members receive no pay; the highest amount paid is in the Canton of Geneva, and it is only six francs for each day that there is a sitting. The Greater Council, besides drafting the laws and decrees, and interpreting, suspending, and repealing them, is ordinarily invested with legislative power over the organization of administrations; the supervision of the execution of the laws; the right of pardon; the ratification of cantonal agreements; the establishment of cantonal taxes and the mode of their collection; naturalization; ratification of loans contracted by the Canton; the acquisition and alienation of cantonal property; public buildings; the fixing of salaries and emoluments; the surveillance of the executive and judicial powers, and the settlement of conflicts of jurisdiction between these powers; the fixing of the annual budget; the appointment of the members of the Lesser or State Council, as well as the members of the Supreme Tribunal. In Geneva, Basel-rural, Zurich, and Thurgau, the members of the Lesser Council are elected directly by the people. This Lesser Council, which constitutes the executive power, is variously called, in the different Cantons, Conseil d’État, Staatsrath, Standeskommission, Kleinerrath. Originally it was quite a large body; but recent revisions of the cantonal constitutions have made a reduction in the number, and it now consists of from five to seven members, who distribute among themselves the different departments on the same system as that described of the Federal Council. The terms vary from two years to four. In some Cantons the members must be divided as far as practicable among the several electoral districts. In all the Cantons this executive power is collegiate,—that is, not vested in a single individual, but in a commission. Nowhere does the chief magistrate hold the independent position of an American State governor, but, like the President of the Confederation, is mere chairman of the council. The salary paid the members of the executive council is from three to five thousand francs a year. This Council proposes laws and decrees to the Greater Council, and watches over the maintenance of public tranquillity and security, as well as over the execution of the laws, decrees, and regulations of the Greater Council. It administers the funds of the state; appoints those executive and administrative functionaries who are immediately subordinate to it, and watches over them; it has also the higher surveillance of the communal administrations, the poor, the schools, and the churches. The qualification for a member of the executive or Lesser Council is the same as that of the Greater Council; and in both instances it is uniformly limited to active citizens and laymen, and they are re-eligible without limit. The executive council in the larger Cantons is represented, in districts established for the purpose, by Prefects, or Regierungsstatthalter, or Statthalter, who, associated with two Councillors, compose a commission for many purposes. Although agents of the executive council, they are not always appointed by it, but sometimes by the Greater Council, and often directly by the people. The constitutions of most of the Cantons say that the legislative, executive, and judicial functions shall be kept distinct; yet in practice the line of demarcation is often ignored. The legislative bodies are given an important share both in the administration and interpretation of the laws. As in the federal, so in the cantonal constitutions, there is not to be found that delicate adjustment of the political forces, forming so conspicuous a feature in the national as well as in the State system of the United States; that great ingenuity and skill in the contrivances which prevent the different representative bodies from being mere fac-similes of each other, and at the same time preserve their equality in point of power.

A cantonal constitution usually opens with the declaration that the “sovereignty resides in the people as a whole” (“auf der Gresammtheit des Volks beruhe”); and then follows the further declaration that the people, by virtue of that sovereignty, “give it [the Canton] the following constitution;” also that this sovereignty is to be “directly exerted by the active citizens and only indirectly by the magistrates and officials;” that “the people exercise the legislative power in co-operation with the cantonal council” (referring to the right of Initiative and Referendum); and that in this “it is the duty of every citizen to participate.”

All the cantonal constitutions contain, in a more or less explicit and elaborate manner, provisions of this nature, viz.:

All citizens are equal in the eye of the law and enjoy the same civil rights; free expression of opinion by word or in writing; the right of association and of assembly is guaranteed, subject to no other restrictions than those of the common law; in libel suits, alleged defamatory publications must not only be proven to be true, but must appear to have been made from “honest motives and a righteous purpose;” house and home right inviolable; house-searching by an official vested with this power must be in advance carefully explained by the official, as to the reason for and the extent of the proposed search; innocent persons sentenced are entitled to restitution and just satisfaction from the state; father and son, father-in-law and son-in-law, two brothers, or two brothers-in-law cannot serve at the same time as members of the executive or judicial department; all citizens subject to taxation must contribute to the burdens of the state and the community in accordance with their respective means; small estates of persons disabled for work, as well as a sum absolutely necessary for support, shall be exempt from taxation; tax exemptions in favor of private persons or industrial companies forbidden; no new taxes on the consumption of any of the necessaries of life to be levied; cantonal and district officers to receive fixed salaries, all fees going into the state treasury; organization and management of charity left to the community;47 the state to make suitable contributions to lighten the burdens of poor communities, and especially to extend its influence and aid in the education of the children of the poor, improving the hospital service, and reforming the character and ameliorating the condition of the neglected and dissolute; to render assistance and facilities for the development of trades-unions based on the principle of self-help; to pass laws essential for the protection of the laboring classes; judicial sentences not to be set aside or modified by any legislative or administrative authority, except in so far as the pardoning power is vested in the cantonal council. There are also numerous provisions relating to church affairs and education, on parallel lines with those of the federal constitution, with the addition that the former includes the organization and management of the church communities which are exclusively under cantonal authority.

The Cantons are left quite free to organize their courts as they please; justice, in general terms, being administered by the Canton with recourse in specified cases to the Federal Tribunal. The cantonal judicial organization presents two well-defined courts: the district courts (Bezirksgerichte or Amtsgerichte), which are courts of first instance; and a supreme or appellate court (Obergericht or Appellationsgericht), which is the court of final instance. Some of the Cantons have justices of the peace; these are elected by the Communes for a term of six years, and have jurisdiction up to fifty francs. Either party to a suit, or the justice, may demand that two jurors elected by the casting of lots be summoned to assist in the trial. For the hearing of criminal cases, there is a trial in a few Cantons by a jury under the presidency of a section of the supreme-court justices, but in the others a special criminal court acts without a jury. In three of the large Cantons, Geneva, Zurich, and St. Gallen, there are special Cassation courts put above the Obergericht. Zurich and Geneva have also special commercial courts (Handelsgerichte). In many of the Cantons the supreme court exercises certain semi-executive functions, taking the place of a ministry of justice, in overseeing the action of the lower courts, and of all judicial officers, such as the states-attorneys. The courts make annual reports to the legislative council, containing a full review of the judicial business of each year, discussing the state of justice, with criticisms upon the system in vogue, and suggestions of reform. These reports are important sources of judicial statistics. The terms of cantonal judges vary from three to four and six years. The judges of the inferior courts are elected directly by the people; those of the supreme courts by the legislative council. In Bern the legislative council also elects the presidents of the district courts. No qualification for election to the bench is required except that of being an “active citizen.” But invariably, to the higher courts at least, competent lawyers are chosen; and re-election is the rule. The district courts render final judgments on claims from fifty to two hundred francs. Either party to the suit has the right to demand that two district judges preside as associate judges. The district courts, consisting of a president and four judges, decide as of first resort, and the appellate chambers of the supreme court, as of second and final resort, all claims exceeding two hundred francs. The commercial court decides finally all claims exceeding five hundred francs, provided the defendant is entered in the commercial register. In proceedings before the district and commercial courts the claim is first submitted to a justice acting as propitiator; he summons the parties for the purpose of effecting an amicable adjustment of their difficulties; if no agreement can be reached, a lawsuit permit is issued by the justice and handed to the plaintiff, which he in turn presents to the court. In a majority of cases the court proceedings are oral; only in exceptional cases, involving difficult and novel questions or intricate accounts, an order will be made for written preparatory proceedings. After the court hears an oral statement of the claim and the defence, it decides whether further evidence shall be produced, and issues an order setting forth what must be established by each party in the form of written testimony; and this must be presented to the court in an accurate and carefully-prepared form. The judgment of the court is first rendered orally, and written notice of the same given to the parties. When an appeal lies, it must be taken within ten days from the receipt of the above notice. In all cases the plaintiff must make a deposit to cover the costs, but the costs are to be finally paid by the party cast in the suit.

Under the constitutional provision, that final civil judgments rendered in one Canton are executory in any other Canton, sometimes a question arises as to the obligation of one Canton to carry out the decree of the court of another Canton. This question must be referred for final decision to the federal authorities. In only one Canton, that of Uri, is there a departure from the federal system, and there the cantonal courts have the power to declare invalid a cantonal legislative enactment.

Trial by jury, even for felony, does not universally exist in the Cantons. The substitution of a tribunal or judicial body instead of the unitary system, though claimed to be almost tantamount, is far from fulfilling the essential purpose of a jury. Knowledge, skill, and strict impartiality belong to the judge; common sense and common feelings to private individuals on a jury. The judge is deaf, blind, and inexorable, and knows only the law; the jury is under the influence of public opinion, or even of public prejudices, which must not be overlooked altogether, and for the sake of the law itself, of peace and good government. The jury is, in fact, a legislative as well as a judicial power, negatively at least, for deciding on law as well as on fact; they may and do silence the law when they please. Unforeseen cases occur sometimes where an undue advantage is taken of the law. The jury may suspend, in fact, its application until it is altered; in other cases, less uncommon, the strict application of the law would be directly in opposition to public feelings and prejudices, to the extent of threatening popular violence and revolution. A judge cannot make the law bend to circumstances; government cannot yield without disclosing weakness and encouraging the factious; but the jury, being supposed to participate in these public feelings, may preserve the peace without disgrace, by a sort of innocent denial of justice. A jury of judges, as the silent part of the bench may be deemed, cannot be ignorant of the law, and would make themselves gratuitously contemptible if they pretended to participate in the feelings of the multitude. Besides the obvious use of juries as a check on judiciary proceedings for the safety of individuals, the institution is of high political importance. It is one of the hidden springs upon which the cumbrous machine of society is, as it were, suspended, and enabled thereby to sustain accidental shocks without coming to pieces.

There was abundant justification in the early cantonal criminal codes for the abolition, by the federal constitution, of capital punishment48 and corporal pains. Many of the codes were not distinguished for justice, gentleness, or rationality. Nowhere were witches more relentlessly pursued than in some of the Cantons of Switzerland. The laws denouncing them were of Draconian severity. Stern were the ordinances and strange the customs of the older Cantons. In 1666 an entire family, mother, son, and daughter, were burned in Unterwalden for practising forbidden arts. No less than one hundred and fifty individuals were executed at Geneva, in a period of fifty years, during the seventeenth century, for the capital offence of witchcraft, denominated lèse-majesté divine au plus haut chef. The last execution for sorcery was in Glarus in 1782. So late as 1824 a man was racked in Zug, and in the archives of Obwald appears an entry, in 1840, of a payment of thirty francs to the executioner for beating a prisoner, who had proved refractory under examination, with rods, in the torture-chamber. The Swiss historian Müller relates that one Sak, at Bern, was sentenced to be whipped, and led out of the gate by the executioner, for returning from banishment, and if he returned again he should be drowned; also Hanns, the public executioner of Bern, was banished two miles from the jurisdiction of the town for having spoken immodestly to respectable men and women, and if he returned he should have his eyes put out. An inn-keeper of Bern, having procured the seal of a councillor who lodged at his house, made use of it to forge obligations for sums of money which, supported by false witnesses, he claimed after an interval of several years; the fraud being discovered, he was broken upon the wheel, and the witnesses “boiled in a kettle.” In Zurich, any one clipping the coin, had his fingers clipped off, and was then hanged. In the council-room of the old Rathhaus of Appenzell can still be seen an instrument known as the “bocksfutter”; it consists of a long bench, on which delinquents, ordered to be punished with stripes, and prisoners, who were obstinate about admitting their guilt, were wont to be placed, with legs and arms outstretched as if they were going to swim; but every attempt to move these members was prevented by enclosing them in iron clamps firmly fastened to the bench; this preliminary completed, the executioner was called in, and ordered to give the victim as many strokes with “ochsenziemer” on the bare body, as the judges might think necessary, to loosen his tongue or purge him of his offence. Another so-called truth-finder (wahrheitserforschungsmittel) was a cage, in which one could neither stand upright nor stretch his legs, but only cower on the floor in a constrained position. At Freiburg the punishment for stealing five sous was death by decapitation; and a stranger striking a burgher was fastened to a post and scalped, while a burgher striking a stranger paid three sous. Capital punishment was inflicted by cutting off the head, which was done in this manner: the culprit was made fast in an arm-chair, and a cap placed on his head with a hole in the top, by which an assistant took hold of his hair, while the executioner, placed behind, struck off his head with a broadsword.

There is little or nothing in the Swiss cantonal institutions to tempt unworthy men into official life. The salaries are nominal, with very remote chances for any personal aggrandizement. In the local and municipal administrations, it is difficult, if not impossible, for any one class to employ the powers of government for purely selfish ends. Many of the officials serve the Canton, municipality, and community with motives as honorable as their services are intelligent and efficient. The Cantons and communities are comparatively free from debt, and not burdened by excessive taxes. There is a general aversion to incurring public debts, common to the Swiss, from the federal head down through the cantonal, municipal, and community administrations. The revenues of these little states are small, and require strict economy in every branch of expenditure. Nothing is wasted on useless consumers and their retainers; an exact account must be rendered of the employment of the public funds; and precision and publicity in the keeping of public accounts. The people yields its servants, indeed, some compensation, but it does not reward them with pensions or with superabundant influence. It builds up no official class who forget their citizenship and separate themselves from the mass of the people, squeezing as many advantages as possible out of their offices, even to the prejudice of efficient service. The Cantons, upon enumeration, number not twenty-two but twenty-five, because three of them have been divided into half-Cantons, making nineteen whole and six half Cantons. Basel is divided into Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft (urban and rural); Appenzell, into Ausser-Rhoden and Inner-Rhoden; and Unterwalden, into Obwald and Nidwald (above and below the forests which formed the boundary between them). The rending of these Cantons into half-Cantons was the work of party feuds; in one place springing from political causes, in a second from religious strife, and in the third from wrangles about wood and grass. Unterwalden was divided as early as 1366. The division of Appenzell occurred in 1597; the Catholic magistrates having turned out some Protestant ministers, so serious a quarrel ensued between the two communions, that other Cantons were called in as mediators; to restore peace they resorted to a sort of political divorcement; the Canton was divided between the two parties, and a river marked the boundary; the Catholics passed on one side and the Protestants on the other, selling or exchanging reciprocally their fields and houses. The separation in Basel took place in February, 1832; the city of Basel maintained that the country people should either accept the constitution which pronounced them dependent and inferior, or renounce all connection with her: in vain the Diet protested against this division, but the city persisted in the separation rather than put itself on a level with the peasants. Only in one case, that of Basel, was the division accompanied by any violence. There is not a great difference between the population of the halves in the Cantons of Basel and Unterwalden; the urban half, of the former, having an excess of 12,000, and Obwald, of the latter, 3000; but the population of Ausser-Rhoden is four and a half times that of Inner-Rhoden. There is a wide diversity in the area of these several half-Cantons, not easily accounted for, except in the case of Basel, where one-half is composed of the city of Basel. Each half-Canton keeps its own share of sovereign power; each is practically complete in its state autonomy, the original cantonal integral having little recognition beyond the representation in the Council of States. In that body the members from these half-Cantons display, more or less, the antagonism which originally led to the division of their Cantons; Catholic Appenzell is almost certain to oppose Protestant Appenzell; so with all of the members from the fractional Cantons, they are arrayed on different sides of all local questions, seriously impairing their influence. In extent, population, and wealth, the Cantons are about equal to a county; still, each is one of the twenty-two confederate states. The official order of the Cantons corresponds with the historical date of their entry into the Confederation, except that Zurich, Bern, and Luzern, after joining the league of small Cantons, were placed at the head. Uri occupies the first place in chronological order, and anciently Luzern took the lead, but when Zurich entered the Confederation, as an imperial city, in 1351, it displaced Luzern by virtue of its great wealth; and two years later Bern joined the league, and was awarded the second place on account of its military power. The standards of the three original Cantons are very suggestive of their history. The one of Uri represents a bull’s head, with the broken links of the yoke hanging around the neck; that of Schwyz a cross, the double symbol of suffering and deliverance; and the banner of Unterwalden bears two keys, symbolical of the keys of the apostle St. Peter, and destined to open the iron gates of their long slavery. Emile de Laveleye, in his “Primitive Property,” gives the following touching legend as to the method in which the boundary between the Marks or Communes of Uri and Glarus was formerly fixed: “The two Cantons are separated by frozen peaks and a lofty chain of mountains everywhere except at the Klaussen passage, through which one can easily pass from the valley of the Linth to that of the Reuss. In times past, there were disputes and struggles between the people of Uri and Glarus as to the debatable boundary of their pastures. To decide the question, they agreed that, on St. George’s day, a runner should start at the first cock-crow from the bottom of each valley, and that the frontier should be fixed at the point where they met. The start was to be superintended by inhabitants of Glarus at Altdorf, and by inhabitants of Uri at Glarus. The people of Glarus fed the cock, which was to give the signal to their runner, as much as possible, hoping that, being in full vigor, it would crow early in the morning. The people of Uri, on the contrary, starved their cock; hunger kept it awake, and it gave the signal for the start long before dawn. The runner started from Altdorf, entered the Schaechenthal, crossed the top, and began to descend on the other side towards Linth. The Glarus cock crowed so late that their runner met the one from Uri far down the slope on his side. Desperate at the thought of the disgrace which would be reflected on his countrymen, he begged earnestly for a more equitable boundary. ‘Hearken,’ answered the other, ‘I will grant you as much land as you can cross, ascending the mountain with me on your back.’ The bargain was struck. The Glarus man ascended as far as he could, when he fell dead from fatigue on the banks of the stream called Scheidbaechli (the boundary line). This is why Urner Boden, situated on the slope facing Glarus, beyond the division of the water, belongs to Uri. It is a curious legend in which, as so often in Swiss history, the citizen gives his life for the good of his country.”

Individual Cantons have a national character, either because all their inhabitants belong to one people, as in the German Cantons of northern and eastern Switzerland, or in the French Cantons of western Switzerland, or in Italian Ticino; or because one nationality decidedly prevails, as the Germans in Bern and Graubünden, and the French in Freiburg and Valais. The result of holding different peoples together without transforming them into one nationality has been attained only by allowing each people free course in its local and inner life. The drift of Switzerland’s history and its political trend are unquestionably towards a more compact nationality. The constitution was a compromise between the advocates and opponents of nationalism. Every change from 1814 down to 1874 has taken something from the Canton and Commune and bestowed it on the Confederation. In every stage of its historical growth it has been a fight of the Confederation against the Canton, on behalf of general rights; those interests of the citizen which are claimed to lie beyond the proper sphere of local laws and customs. The national government has steadily extended its influence, every step increasing the authority of the nation at the expense of the cantonal independence; a steady growth in national feeling, a constant drift towards a stronger federal government. Many branches of legislation have been taken away from the Cantons, which under the constitution of the United States adhere to the States. The federal government has absorbed numerous matters of social and economic importance, such as those relating to railways, telegraph, factories, insurance, debts, marriage, the law of contract, and general measures of sanitary precaution. “Swiss democratic federalism tends towards unitarianism. This is no doubt in part due to the desire to strengthen the nation against foreign attack. It is also due, perhaps, to another circumstance. Federalism, as it defines and therefore limits the power of each department of the administration, is unfavorable for the interference or to the activity of government. Hence a federal government can hardly render service to the nation by undertaking for the national benefit functions which may be performed by individuals.”49 Wherever in the history of the world we find a federation having an internal organization sufficiently strong to maintain its own existence, we observe an inevitable drift of power from the several states to the central government, striving to ascertain over how broad a field it is expedient and right to extend the activities of government. Yet it is impossible to study attentively the march of Swiss affairs without seeing that what really lie next to the hearts of the people are their cantonal and local institutions; and while a well-assured nationality is kept up, in event of foreign danger or common peril, nevertheless, the citizens look for protection as well as for command to their own cantonal authority. A familiar colloquialism is often used, which illustrates the relation of the cantonal to the national feeling,—“My shirt is nearer to me than my coat.”

Switzerland, though not extensive in point of superficial surface, embraces such an extraordinary variety of climate, soil, race, and occupation as to render the rule of a single central democratic government, in an especial manner, vexatious. It must of necessity adhere to a system of Federal Union in preference to that of a central and universally diffused authority; because in small states, having each the power of internal legislation, the interests of the inhabitants are nearly the same, and their influence can be felt and their wants receive due consideration.

The Cantons have deep-rooted and peculiar local institutions, in many cases of great vitality; laws handed down traditionally from generation to generation, often without having ever been committed to paper, much less to print. Until 1848 there was not one written and accepted cantonal constitution. A country where self-government has longest subsisted, and political institutions been most the subject of popular discussion and decision, it is at the same time a country in which innovations are with the most difficulty introduced. You might alter the whole political frame of government in the French republic with more facility than you could introduce the most insignificant change into the customs and fashions of the Swiss democracy. They seem as immovable as the mountains in which they were cradled. The French directory, in the ardor of their innovations, proposed to the peasants of the Forest Cantons a change in their league, and made the offer of fraternization, which had seduced the allegiance of so many other states, but these sturdy mountaineers replied, “Words cannot express, citizen directors, the profound grief which the proposal to accede to the new Helvetic League has occasioned in these valleys. Other people may have different inclinations, but we, the descendants of William Tell, who have preserved, without the slightest alteration, the constitutions which he has left us, have but one unanimous wish, that of living under the government which Providence and the courage of our ancestors have left us.”

The Confederation, in striving to make the general organization more systematic and uniform, must tenderly regard cantonal susceptibilities. The Swiss federal organization is firmly founded on cantonal precedents, traits, and features; and their self-assertive vitality and their direct influence make them the central subject of Swiss politics. The federal constitution designates the members of the Confederation as “sovereign Cantons;” and each of the cantonal constitutions says in effect, “This, under federal supremacy, is a sovereign Canton,” and each declares that the sovereignty within the Cantons rests on “the people as a whole.” “Sovereign state” is conspicuous in the constitution, federal and cantonal. It expresses national instincts, national experiences, and political education. All the elevating memories of national history, all the inspiring traditions which had bred into national sentiment, generation after generation, were connected with a league of states of almost insulated independence. Each Canton has always jealously clung to its own individuality and ancient customs. Every now and then the republic would be split up into smaller confederations for the purpose of maintaining the rights of state sovereignty; by these sectional strifes, the idea of isolation and individuality was handed on, gaining strength as it went, and becoming more and more a political instinct of the Swiss people.

Switzerland is a microcosm. In these five and twenty little states we have a miniature resemblance of all the phases of social and political life; every Canton contributes with friendly emulation to improve the domestic policy and strengthen the political relations of the Confederation; if they present no example worthy to be followed as a whole, there is still much in their detail that will most abundantly repay our study.