YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATES

Gift of
THOMAS EWART MARSTON
YALE 1927

SEYEN LETTEES

ON THE RECENT

POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.

(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN " THE SPECTATOR.")

GEORGE GROTE, Esq.,
Author of a" History of Greece."

LONDON :
T. C. NEWBY, 72, MORTIMER STREET,
CAVENDISH SQUARE.
1847.

LONDON :
Printed by W. Clowes aud Sons,
14, Charing Cross.

PREFACE.
The following letters embody the results of
reading and enquiry during the course of a
recent excursion in Switzerland. I thought
at first that what I had to say would have
been comprised in three letters at farthest ;
but the matter has insensibly grown under
my hands into the bulk of a small volume.
The inhabitants of the twenty-two Cantons
of Switzerland are interesting, on every
ground, to the general intelligent public of
Europe. But to one whose studies lie in the
contemplation and interpretation of historical
phenomena, they are especially instructive —
partly from the many specialties and differ
ences of race, language, religion, civilization,
b2

IV FREFACE.
wealth, habits, &c, which distinguish one
part of the population from another, com
prising between the Rhine and the Alps a
miniature of all Europe, and exhibiting the
fifteenth century in immediate juxta-position
with the nineteenth — partly from the free
and unrepressed action of the people, which
brings out such distinctive attributes in full
relief and contrast. To myself in particular,
they present an additional ground of interest,
from a certain political analogy (nowhere else
to be found in Europe) with those who pro
minently occupy my thoughts, and on the
history of whom I am still engaged — the
ancient Greeks.
In listening not only to the debates in the
Diet, but also to the violent expressions of
opposite sentiment manifested throughout
the country during the present summer, I
felt a strong impulse to understand how such

PREFACE. V
dispositions had arisen ; to construe the pre
sent in its just aspect as a sequel to the past
— and to comprehend that past itself in con
junction with the feelings which properly
belong to it, not under the influence of feel
ings belonging to the present. The actual
condition, and reasonable promise, of Swiss
Federal politics, were different in 1841 and
1844, and have become again materially
different in 1847: we have to study each
period partly in itself, partly with reference
to that which preceded it, and out of which
it grew. A man must have little experience of
historical phenomena to suppose that in any
violent political contention, all the right is
likely to lie on one side and all the wrong
on the other. I have not disguised my con
viction that both the Swiss parties have com
mitted wrong, nor is my statement likely to

VI PREFACE.
give satisfaction to either of them : to shew
the prolific power of wrong deeds in gene
rating their like, is in my judgment one of
the most important lessons of history.
Whether I have distributed praise and blame
in right proportion, is a matter on which
there is room for difference of opinion ; but
I shall at least help my readers to conceive
the main points of Swiss political dispute
in historical sequence, and along with their
concomitant circumstances. The English or
French criticisms which I have as yet seen,
rarely attempt to do this ; yet without it
no criticism can be either equitable or in
structive. In regard to the future, I am sparing of
predictions. Amidst phenomena so compli
cated, so full of reciprocal excitement, and
so little amenable to precedent as those
whicli Switzerland now exhibits, a foreigner

PREFACE. Vll
can do nothing more than put together the
past in order to interpret the present. The
business of prediction, as well as that of
counsel and guidance, he must leave to
natives ; and deeply indeed is it to be wished
that the Swiss leaders may shew themselves
at the actual crisis not incompetent to these
lofty functions.
There is one remark, and one only, which
I shall permit myself to make. ^Whatever
may be the internal elements of disturbance
under which Switzerland now labours, none
of them will be removed, several of them
will be aggravated, and many new causes
of mischief introduced, by an armed foreign
intervention. A partition of Switzerland,
arranged between M. Guizot and Prince Met
ternich, under the name of protection to the
Sonderbund, will be a heavy price for the
country to pay for the continuance of the

V1I1 PREFACE.
blessings of Jesuitism, and for the mainte
nance of what the foreign protector may
choose to call peace. It is disgraceful enough
that the French Minister has tried to smuggle
arms and ammunition from the arsenal at
Besancon across the Swiss frontier: let us
hope at least that the generous sympathies
of the French people will counteract his
disposition to inflict yet worse evils upon an
already embarrassed neighbour.
G. G.
London, October 14, 1847.

POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.

Letter I.
Sept. 4, 1847.
Of the numerous travellers who during
the course of every summer visit the magni
ficent scenery of Switzerland, there are not
many who interest themselves in the political
or social condition of the people. But in
the present year, this latter topic has stood
to an unusual degree in the foreground ; and
the proceedings of the Diet, which has been
sitting at Berne for the last two months,
have attracted more notice than ever that
assembly received before, not merely from
visitors, but from the general public of
Europe. Such increased notice is indeed
abundantly justified by the serious character
which Swiss politics have now assumed, and
by the open collision, seemingly but one
degree removed from actual hostilities, of a
B 3

10 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
majority and minority of the Diet. On
the 20th of last July, a majority, including
twelve Cantons and two Half-Cantons, came
to the important vote, that the separate
league of seven Cantons, called the Sonder
bund, was a contravention of the Federal
Pact ; directed its dissolution ; and threw
upon the Cantons composing it the responsi
bility of all the consequences of disobedience.
Those Cantons — Lucerne, Friburg, Schwytz,
Unterwalden, Uri, Zug, and Valais — have
not only protested against this decision, and
refused to obey it, but have even persisted,
and are still persisting, in military prepara
tions, for the purpose of repelling any attempt
on the part of the majority of the Diet to
enforce its decision by arms. As yet, no
proposition for forcibly executing the sentence
has been submitted to the Diet, whose sen
tence of condemnation against the Sonder
bund has been formally proclaimed, but
remains unexecuted. It has been followed
up only by one or two other resolutions
against the Sonderbund, adopted by the same

LETTER I. 11
majority. A supply of arms and ammunition,
sent by the Austrians from Lombardy to the
Cantons of the Sonderbund, but detained by
the inhabitants of Tessin in its passage
through that Canton, has been placed under
sequestration by order of the Diet, in the
hands of the Government of Tessin : the
Cantons of the Sonderbund have been for
mally admonished to discontinue their mili
tary preparations : moreover, a Commission
has been nominated to examine and commu
nicate with such officers of the Federal
military force as hold commissions under the
refractory Cantons ; and a resolution has
been passed by the Diet, to dismiss them
from the former unless they voluntarily
renounce the latter. Still, no real progress
is made towards the dissolution of the Son
derbund ; which continues inflexible — ob
stinate, and even insolent in the language of
its Deputies — and unremitting in its warlike
preparations. Presently, the Diet will also
pass a resolution, by the same majority,
directing or inviting the expulsion of the

12 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Jesuits from Switzerland : but this resolution
will meet with the same angry opposition,
and the same proclaimed disobedience, as
the others.
How long such open dissension can con
tinue, or by what steps it will be brought to
a close, no reasonable man will venture to
pronounce. But it is most certainly grave
and menacing : it is pregnant with the pos
sibility, not to say more, of civil war in
Switzerland, and with the further possibility
of foreign interference in that country. As
suming even that such interference does not
take place, the sympathies of Europe are of
no mean account in reference to every indi
vidual country ; and it is therefore worth
while to form some rational estimate of the
direction which those sympathies ought to
take. The causes of what happens in a
Swiss Diet are not a little complicated : for
that assembly represents the result of what
has been done and felt in each of the twenty-
two Cantons — each a little political world,
distinct from, though sympathising with, the

LETTER I. 13
rest. Switzerland consists of twenty-two
Cantons, each having one vote in the Diet,
though there is the greatest inequality be
tween them in wealth and population ; Berne
containing about 430,000 inhabitants, and
Zurich about 230,000, while Uri comprises
only 15,000. Each Canton is independent
and sovereign, except in so far as it is bound
by the provisions of the Federal Pact, or by
resolutions of the Diet in fulfilment of and
in conformity with the Pact. Indeed, even
this multiplicity of elements does not repre
sent the full complexity of Swiss political
affairs: for three out of the twenty-two
Cantons — Bale, Appenzell, and Unterwalden
— are divided each into two Half-Cantons,
each Half-Canton sovereign and independent,
subject to the restriction above-mentioned.
The two sections of Bale (town and country),
and of Appenzell (Inner-Rhoden and Ausser-
Rhoden), not only differ from each other on
the most material points, but are almost
always politically opposed ; and whenever
they are so opposed, their votes are of course

14 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
neutralized in the Diet. So multiform are
the elements — not to mention the many and
important differences of race, religion, lan
guage, wealth, civilization, habits, residence
in mountain, plain, town, or country, &c. —
which go to form political society among
the 2,400,000 inhabitants of Switzerland :
of whom about 900,000 are Catholics, the.
remainder Protestants.
To trace the working of these various
causes, which have co-operated more or less
to form the majority called Radical, and the
minority called Conservative, in the present
Diet, is no very easy problem even for a
native : a foreigner can only seize the prin
cipal and prominent circumstances. There
is, however, one source of error whicli espe
cially deserves to be pointed out, and of
which more will be said presently — -that of
estimating the character and tendencies of
Swiss parties by the names which they bear
of Radical and Conservative. These names
have now got a footing in every language of
Europe, and have very strong feelings of

LETTER I. 15
esteem or hatred associated with them ; they
are nowise correct as designations of the two
Federal parties prominently opposed in Swit
zerland, and of the points at issue between
them: yet foreigners easily transfer to that
country the established sentiments or esta
blished interests which they have contracted
towards the parties so called at home. This
is especially necessary to be borne in mind
when we read the speeches delivered by
M. Guizot in the French Chamber, or the
articles in the Journal des Debats, which have
so wide a circulation in Europe. Whoever
judges of Switzerland from these sources, will
carry away an impression not merely partial
and inaccurate, but in many respects the direct
reverse of real truth. M. Guizot speaks
from the French tribune the language of an
exaggerated Swiss party politician : omit the
name and translate his speech into German,
it might pass for one of the bitter invectives
of M. Meyer, the Deputy of Lucerne in the
Swiss Diet, against Radical spirit and ag
gressions. The Journal des Debats and

16 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
other French journals are written in the
same vein : to them, as well as to M. Guizot,
it is sufficient if they find an opportunity of
inflaming their readers against Radical prin
ciples, and of impressing upon them the
dignity of Conservative politics sanctified by
religious zeal. With M. Guizot, probably,
such discourses are more than an ebullition
of feeling : they are also a useful manoeuvre
in reference to his own position in France.
For he owes that position not to any esteem
or confidence entertained towards him by
the French people — still less to any hopes
which they feel of progress or improvement
under his Ministry ; but chiefly to the fears
which the French electoral body have been
taught to entertain of Radicalism. And the
menaces, so offensive and indecent in the
mouth of any foreign Power, which he ad
dresses to the Swiss Diet, are intended to
tell quite as much upon French Conservatives
and French Radicals as upon Lucerne and
Berne. Two points deserve particular notice in

LETTER I. 17
the bitter animadversions which M. Guizot
and the French Conservative journals pour
forth against the recent course of Swiss
politics. 1. They dwell continually, and almost
exclusively, upon two facts in the recent
history of that country, — the invasion of the
Canton of Lucerne, in the end of 1844, as
well as in the beginning of 1845, by bands of
volunteers from the other Cantons, called
the Corps Francs — and the separate league
of seven Cantons, called the Sonderbund,
which is represented as a consequence of this
unjust invasion, and resorted to only as a
means of defence.
2. They depict the present majority of
twelve Cantons and two Half-Cantons, which
has just pronounced the Sonderbund to be
unconstitutional and directed its dissolution,
as a majority bent upon complete subversion
of the Cantonal independent action through
out Switzerland, and upon the transfer of the
twenty-two separate Governments now exist
ing, to one central and united republic at

18 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Berne. To add to the terrors of this im
pending republic, it is described as likely to
become aggressive and formidable to all its
neighbours ; since the 2,400,000 souls which
the whole country contains would be so
immensely strengthened (we are told) by
this concentration, that they would forthwith
overstep their own rights and limits, for the
purpose and with the power of imposing
unjust conditions on others.
Such are the two points principally insisted
upon by M. Guizot, and many of the leading
critics on Swiss affairs. In regard to the
first of the two, they mislead by isolating
one single event and presenting it apart from
its preceding and accompanying circum
stances : in regard to the second, they mislead
yet more, by imputing to a great party in
Switzerland, designs which none of those
who really represent that party have given
the least ground for suspecting, and by
holding forth as likely to be accomplished a
centralization to which all present tendencies
stand irrevocably opposed.

LETTER I. 19
That there may be persons in Switzerland,
and those too not among the least patriotic
of her citizens, who wish that such a central
ization or something approaching to it could
be established, is probable enough : and it is
not easy to see why any impartial foreigner,
who desires nothing but the tranquillity,
happiness, and improvement of the country,
should denounce them for it ; although it may
suit the purpose of a French Minister, who
wishes to see Switzerland at all times open to
attack, to foment the maximum of disunion.
Among the 2,400,000 people who dwell ber
tween the Lakes of Constance and Geneva,
there are now twenty-five independent esta
blishments, each fitted up (better or worse)
for the complete execution of all the purposes
of government. In the time of Aristotle, and
with his political experience, such minute
subdivision would have appeared an indispen
sable condition of freedom and responsibility :
but in the present state of political knowledge,
it is surely neither crime nor folly to conceive
that all the great purposes of society might

20 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
be better fulfilled by locally-chosen governing
bodies subordinate to one common centre.
And this is the ground actually taken by
some of the French Opposition journals
against M. Guizot : they seem to admit that
the Swiss political leaders do contemplate an
entire subordination of the Cantonal to the
Central Government, and defend them in this
supposed project. Both the attack and the
defence are here founded on the same mistaken
supposition : still the defence is perfectly well
grounded to this extent — that if the Swiss
leaders really did entertain the project imputed
to them by the French Minister, and were
striving to bring their own people to the same
view, they would in nowise deserve those
bitter denunciations which he has poured
forth against them, though the particular
circumstances of the case might render it
inadmissible and impracticable.
Wise or foolish as the conception of a
single or unitary Government, embracing all
Switzerland, may be in itself, it is not the con
ception entertained either by the leading

LETTER I. 21
politicians or by any one of the leading Can
tons in that country. Revision of the Federal
Pact is indeed what they strongly insist upon :
but to revise the Pact is one thing — to con
stitute an unitary or single Government for
the administration of all Switzerland, is
another. It may safely be pronounced that
a revision of the Pact, in such manner as to
give too much power to the Central Govern
ment and to weaken the Cantonal Govern
ments too much, is of all contingencies the
most improbable ; though there are so many
French and English critics who represent this
as a plan already organized by an oppressive
majority in Switzerland, and only to be ar
rested by foreign interference. Of the two
extreme and opposite political changes con
ceivable — first, complete fusion of the Can
tonal Governments into one common and
unitary Government, or secondly, complete
disruption of the Pact and formation of
several Governments out of it, altogether dis
tinct from each other — the latter is decidedly
the least improbable : nay, if we look at the

22 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
present unyielding temper and excitement of
the Swiss parties, it might almost appear the
least improbable solution of all, in a problem
so essentially embroiled.
The tendencies of the present time, indeed,
are not to strengthen the authority of the
Diet over the Cantons, but to reduce it still
lower — from extreme weakness down to ab
solute nullity. The conduct of the recusant
minority in this present affair of the Sonder
bund, and still more the arguments by which
they that conduct, amount to" nothing less
than a complete nullification of all imperative
authority in the Pact, even as to its most
positive and specific provisions. Assuredly,
if there is to be any federation at all, one of
its most essential provisions must be, that the
members shall contract no separate alliances
among themselves injurious or dangerous to
the entire confederacy. The sixth Article of
the Federal Pact distinctly says — " No alli
ance shall be formed among the several
Cantons, detrimental either to the general
confederacy or to the rights of other Can-

LETTER I. 23
tons :" so that, under the terms of this Article,
the competence of the Diet to entertain and
pronounce upon the legality of the Sonder
bund cannot be impugned except by argu
ments which go to deny its competence
universally. Now a majority of the Diet has
pronounced the Sonderbund to be illegal and
an infringement of the Pact : to whicli the
members of the Sonderbund reply by a
protest and a peremptory refusal to obey.
Such proclaimed resistance, by so many
Cantons at once, is of itself the most fatal
blow which has yet been aimed at the
authority of the Diet : and the dissolving
effect of this practical measure is still further
enlarged by the arguments upon which it is
made to rest. " We maintain," say the Can
tons of this separate league or Sonderbund,
" that our league is not at variance with the
provisions of the Pact ; it is purely defensive,
and has been rendered necessary by aggressions
on the part of other Cantons or their citizens
against the Government of Lucerne : we in
tend no evil to others, if they do not attack

24 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
us ; and we shall maintain our league as long
as our own security seems to us to require."
To employ such arguments as these while the
question was under discussion in the Diet,
and for the chance of influencing the decision
of that body, was their incontestable right :
but they still continue to hold the same
language, and act upon the same principle,
even after the Diet has decided against them.
When it is urged that to apply the general
provisions of the Pact to a particular case, and
to decide judicially whether the case does or
does not fall under a rule there laid down, is
among the most indispensable attributes of
the Diet — the Sonderbund meet this propo
sition by an unqualified negative. " We are
sovereign Cantons," they say, " and recognise
no authority in the majority of the Diet to
apply or interpret the Pact against a recusant
minority ; we admit no right to interpret
the Pact except by the unanimous decision
of the twenty-two sovereign Cantons ; we
construe the sixth Article of the Pact in a
manner perfectly consistent with our separate

LETTER I. 25
league, and we shall therefore, as sovereign
Cantons, continue to act upon our own con
struction of it, though a majority of the
Cantons may decide otherwise." Here we
find an act of avowed and unqualified resist
ance, sustained by arguments which amount
to a complete negation of the authority of
the Diet over individual Cantons in any case
whatever — to a complete nullification of the
Diet as a body acting by its majority. For if
the decision of the majority is not to hold
good against that of one or a few Cantons, as
to the judicial application of an express
article of the Pact to a given particular case,
it is plainly of no binding authority on
any question which may be conceived. ,' The
Federal Pact, in this reading, becomes a
mere alliance of independent and sovereign
States, each of them at liberty to put their
own construction upon it and break it when
ever they choose — of course at the hazard
of war, if contradiction or provocation assume
a character sufficiently grave.
Such is the state of public law in Switzer- c

26 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
land, as proclaimed and now acted upon by
one-third of the twenty-two Cantons, and
tacitly sanctioned by a minority, more or less
considerable, in the others ; and it is strange,
in the face of this obvious fact, to hear the
French Minister proclaim, that the power to
be feared in Switzerland is, an overruling
and oppressive interference on the part of
the Diet, with an extinction of Cantonal
independence ! Never before has the judicial
competence of the Diet been so glaringly
defied in practice, and so explicitly denied
in theory, as in the present year ; and
this too by a very powerful minority. That
minority, in the excitement of party contest,
may perhaps in part really believe themselves
to be the defenders of Cantonal rights un
justly assailed by their opponents ; but among
them are those who, knowing the case too
well to believe in the reality of such danger,
also know that the pretence of such belief is
the most popular of all topics in reference to
Swiss feeling.
It is in fact impossible to study attentively

LETTER I. 27
the march of Swiss affairs without seeing,
that what really lies next to the hearts of the
people is, their Cantonal and communal sys
tem ; and that, although on some particular
questions connected with Swiss Federal poli
tics, there may be rare and temporary mo
ments of excitement — although there is a
growing desire, and a very rational desire, for
better-assured nationality in the event of
foreign danger — nevertheless, the idea of in
terference on the part of the Diet in Cantonal
affairs is habitually unfamiliar and repulsive.
This is not less true of the Cantons called
Radical than of the Cantons called Con
servative — in both of them alike, the citizens
look for protection, as well as for command,
to their own Cantonal authority. Nothing
can be more memorable, throughout the
history of the past years, than the uniform
indecision and impotence of the Diet ; indeed,
one reason why so much has been said about
terrible projects of over-centralization at the
present moment, is, that now, almost for the
first time, a majority of the Diet has been
c2

28 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
found to take a decisive resolution on an
important subject. Throughout the past
history of the Diet, we find discussion after
discussion without determination ; no ma
jority at all being found to agree in any —
sometimes not even in a negative or vote of
rejection. To prevail upon twelve Cantons
to agree in any positive vote, has been gene
rally found a difficulty all but insurmountable.
Among the many different questions put to
t':e vote, those which are the most trying and
important do not often obtain a majority;
because several Deputies abstain altogether
from voting, some reserving to themselves
the liberty of voting, subsequently, when they
shall have asked and received instructions
from their Canton. It is to be remarked
that every Deputy present votes, not agree
ably to any opinion of his own, but to instruc
tions received from the Great Council, or
supreme legislative authority, in his own Can
ton — which may sometimes, though this does
not often happen, confer upon him plenary
powers of self-decision upon some given sub-

LETTER I. 29
ject; but, excepting in these cases, the instruc
tions, prepared in each separate Canton, in
clude conditions or adopt modifications differ
ent from each other, which usually prevent any
number of Deputies from concurring in one
substantive proposition. Speaking from his
instructions, as a counsel speaks from a brief,
a Deputy may sustain his opinion by power
ful arguments — and the speeches of some of
them are eloquent and creditable; but his
conclusion is prescribed to him before the
meeting of the Diet. And in fact, the form s
and language of the Diet consider each
Deputy as an ambassador from his Canton :
he is always styled " Der Gesandte des
Standes  ," by the President, when in
viting the opinions of every one at the table
seriatim, and most frequently so styled through
out the course of discussion. The relations of
the Deputy to his Canton are doubtless those
of a delegate bound by instructions ; yet the
relations of the Cantons towards each other
are not those of independent States, but of
States which have bound themselves in con-

30 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
federacy to obey the provisions of a solemn
and common Pact, and have formally con
stituted the body called the Diet to uphold
and enforce that Pact.
What the Cantons mostly stand chargeable
with is, the feeling of Cantonal selfishness —
each being careless of the interests of other
Cantons as compared with its own : at least,
the tendency to error is almost uniformly in
this direction. Thus, when we follow the
discussions of the Diet, not upon the present
embittered questions of Federal politics, but
upon internal taxes, tolls, or commercial re
gulations in the various Cantons, which fall to
a certain extent within its competence — we
find this feeling of Cantonal egoism not less
prevalent in the Radical Canton of Vaud
than in the Sonderbund Cantons of Lucerne
and Valais. During the past winter and
spring, the suffering from dearth and high
prices of provision being very severe in all
parts of Switzerland, each of these three
Cantons made regulations either prohibit
ing or impeding the export of provisions to

LETTER I. 31
other Cantons, — a proceeding contrary to the
Federal Pact. This subject being brought
on for discussion in the Diet shortly after
the passing of the vote to dissolve the
Sonderbund, the Radical Deputy of Vaud
(M. Druey, a coarse but animated and em
phatic speaker, not very unlike the late
Mr. O'Connell) was found in the same line
of defence as the Ultra-Catholic M. de
Courten, Deputy of the Valais — the most
outspoken and even insolent among all the
persons assembled. Whoever imagines that
the Radical Cantons are disposed to be liberal
in the sacrifice of Cantonal independence to
Federal supremacy, would have been unde
ceived if he had listened to the speech of
M. Druey — seasoned, moreover, with many
sneers against free trade : he employed one
familiar comparison which illustrates the
relation of the Cantonal to the Federal
feelings throughout Switzerland — " My shirt
is nearer to me than my coat." In the
course of another discussion, in which the
Conservative Canton of Valais was proved to

32 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
be upholding a scheme of tolls not only at
variance with the Pact, but also without that
formal communication, in respect to tolls
imposed, which every Canton is bound to
furnish to the Federal authority, the Deputy
of Valais, M. de Courten, went so far as to
tell the Diet flatly—" Nous n' y renoncerons
jamais." So jealous and irritable is the
sentiment of Cantonal independence on both
sides, even in matters where the rights of
conscience are noway concerned, and where
the matter in dispute is nothing greater than
the raising of revenue in one way rather
than in another. To show the different
cross-divisions among the Cantons, I may
add, that Neufchatel, which is highly Con
servative in general politics, and makes
almost common cause with the Sonderbund,
though not a member of it, is at the same
time extremely liberal and right-minded on
questions of trade and transit.
If we except the arrangements for the
Federal military force, — for the relations
between Switzerland and foreign countries,

LETTER I. 33
and for some few questions of toll and
transit — on all other points the Cantonal
Governments may be said to act without any
positive interference on the part of the Diet.
Doubtless the Pact, with its solemn recog
nition of a common country and brotherly
obligation between the Cantons, exercises a
considerable moral influence over their pro
ceedings ; and the meetings of the Diet, in
spite of the feebleness of its coercive sanc
tion, are indispensably necessary to keep
alive and strengthen this moral influence.
Hence arises a partial disposition, feebler
than might be desired, yet still precious, to
adapt their legislation to the interests of
each other — and a facility for special agree
ments between them having this object in
view. Yet that the Pact itself ought also
to be modified, so as to enlarge the attribu
tions of the Diet and impart to the country
a more efficient and better protected nation
ality, has long been a widespread conviction
in Switzerland, and seems as a general
position not denied even by the Govern-
c3

34 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
ment of Lucerne; though that Canton, as
well as the other Cantons of the Sonder
bund, protests against attempting to alter
it at the present time and under present
feelings. And the Diet itself has on several
occasions entertained the general idea of
„ revising the Pact, though no specific plan has
ever found approval : it has again in its
present session, by the same majority which
pronounced the Sonderbund to be illegal,
decided that the Pact required alteration,
and that a Committee should be appointed
to make a report on the best means of at
taining this end. It is remarkable, that every
one of the Deputies who formed this ma
jority, disclaimed in the most emphatic man
ner the idea imputed to them, of surrendering
Cantonal independence and aiming at an
unitary Government in Switzerland. This
Committee, composed of all the Deputies of
the majority — it could hardly be otherwise
composed, since the Deputies of the Sonder
bund refused to take part in the proceeding
— are now assembled ; and it will remain to

LETTER I. 35
be seen whether they can agree in recom
mending any positive scheme of real im
portance and efficiency. One effect can
hardly fail to ensue from their report — a
complete refutation of that charge of anti-
Cantonal tendency which is so loudly urged
against them by the Sonderbund and its
foreign partisans. But whether these Depu
ties will all be able to concur in any specific
plan of reform, with due respect to this limit
— still more, whether their respective Cantons
(in each of which there is a Conservative
minority ready to raise opposition on any
plausible ground, and in many of which there
are Catholics more or less open to the
intrigues of Lucerne) will all concur in
adopting their recommendation — must re
main for the future to decide : should matters
proceed even so far as this, there will still
remain the Sonderbund, a large minority who
will oppose anything and everything. Yet,
assuming such unqualified repugnance on the
part of the Sonderbund for the present to
continue, still, if the existing majority of

36 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Cantons, comprising four-fifths of the popu"
lation, and more than four-fifths of the
intelligence and wealth of Switzerland, should
agree in sanctioning any definite reform of
the Federal Pact — above all, if a sentiment
should grow up among them of deeper
attachment and more willing submission to
the Pact so improved, than that which is felt
towards the Pact as it now stands — a great
point will be gained for the future march,
organisation, and tranquillity of Switzerland.
Berne and Zurich, the first and second among
the Cantons in respect of population and
power, are on this occasion in cordial co-.
operation, — a rare conjunction, since jealousy
between these two powerful Cantons is among
the standing phenomena of Swiss politics.
And this increases materially the chance
both of arriving at some definite result in
respect to Federal reform, and of repressing
disorderly ebullitions amidst the conflicting
elements with which Switzerland is now
disturbed. In touching upon Swiss affairs, the first

LETTER I. 37
impulse of an impartial observer is to repel
those false charges which M. Guizot — with a
looseness of speech altogether unbecoming in
a statesman of his position — has advanced
against the majority of the Diet. I shall in
a future letter say something respecting that
series of preliminary events, one growing out
of another, which has brought about the pre
sent serious conflict of parties in Switzer
land. Though it cannot for a moment be
contended that all the right is on one side
and all the wrong on the other, yet, if we
look for the great cause both of mischief in
the past and of danger for the future, we
shall find it in the statesmen, miscalled Con
servative, who are now at the head of the
Government of Lucerne.

38

Letter II.
Sept. 11, 1847.
The Federal Pact under which the Swiss
Cantons now live has become unpopular not
merely from its own intrinsic defects and
ambiguities, but also from the time and cir
cumstances of its origin. It was framed in
1815, in place of the constitution called the
Act of Mediation; which, having been in
troduced and guaranteed by Napoleon, had
fallen with the extinction of his power. It
was the product of a time when the Patrician
families in politics and Ultramontane in
fluences in religion were in a state of trium
phant reaction against the restraints imposed
upon them from 1798 downward: both of
them seconded by the Allied Powers at the
Congress of Vienna; who, however, to their
credit be it spoken, mitigated on several
points the exorbitant pretensions of the re
vived native oligarchies. Since 1830, almost
all the Cantonal Governments have undergone

LETTER II. 39
a capital change, and have become thoroughly
popular : so that the Federal Pact remains as
the only unaltered relic of an odious time.
In 1832, the majority of the Diet recognised
the necessity of modifying it, and named a
Committee for the purpose, of which M. Rossi
of Geneva was the reporter. Their scheme
of Federal reform — maintaining intact the
Cantonal sovereignty and equal representation
in the Diet, but remodelling the Federal
authority, and introducing in every way
valuable improvements — was signed by the
Deputies of fourteen Cantons, (including the
three directing Cantons of Berne, Zurich, and
Lucerne,) and recommended by them earnestly
to the acceptance of Switzerland. Unhappily
for the country, it was rejected ; chiefly from
the resolute opposition of the primitive and
Conservative Cantons, who would endure no
change at all — partly from the indifference,
rather than the opposition, of extreme poli
ticians on the other side, who wished for
something more comprehensive and sym
metrical.

40 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Prior to the year 1798, the condition of a
Swiss Canton was that of a great feudal lord,
with an aggregate of many separate seigneurial
properties, acquired partly by conquest, partly
by purchase : in the town Cantons — such as
Berne, Soleure, Basle, Zurich, &c. — the town
was the lord, the country districts were at
tached to it as dependant properties : iu the
rural Cantons — such as Uri, Schwytz, &c. —
it was an aggregate of rural and democratical
communes which exercised lordship over
other dependant communes in their neigh
bourhood. This system of profound political
inequality, broken up between 1798 and
1815, was revived to a great degree in the
latter year : in the town Cantons, the
Government again fell into the hands of
the citizens of the town, and was even con
fined to a small number of persons among
those citizens; while the country districts
were either essentially subject, or had a
share in it little more than nominal. Most of
the Cantons had their two Councils — Great
and Small Council ; the former legislative,

LETTER II. 41
the latter executive : but the real powers of
government were all exercised by the Small
or Executive Council, while the Great
Council had neither initiative, nor in
dependent play of its own, nor publicity of
debate ; but was in practice a mere ac
quiescent adjunct of the Executive, rather
than a check upon it. In the Catholic Can
tons, the reaction of 1815 took the form of a
devoted Ultramontanism ; the governing few
surrendering themselves to the inspirations
of the Papal Nuncio with a compliance not
paralleled in any part of Europe, and form
ing a strong contrast with the resolute inde
pendence of the old Catholic Cantons before
1798 in maintaining their civil authority
against the Court of Rome. In the Canton
of Valais, this Ultramontanism reached its
maximum ; the priests being subject to a
special jurisdiction for their persons, and en
joying immunity from taxation as to their
properties, in a manner more suitable to the
fifteenth century than to the nineteenth.
The primitive Cantons of Uri, Unterwalden,

42 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
and Schwytz, (the latter with modifications
in consequence of the unequal relation of
what were called the outer districts,) retained
their old primitive constitution unchanged :
the Landesgemeinde, or general assembly of
all the adult citizens, meets once in the year,
has the exclusive power of making laws
when needed, and elects the administrators
required, who are very seldom changed. Such
form of Democracy is universally acceptable
to the people of these Cantons : though, when
taken in conjunction with their dull and sta
tionary intelligence, their bigotry, and their
pride in bygone power and exploits, it works
in practice as a mere routine of power, prac
tically secret and unresponsible, in the hands
of a small number of old families; very
different from the Canton of Appenzell
Ausser Rhoden, where substantially the same
form of government prevails among a popu
lation industrious, orderly, intelligent, and
public-spirited, far beyond the average of
Switzerland. These Swiss Governments, all springing

LETTER II. 43
out of the reaction of 1815, acted in
harmony with each other as to general
politics; though even then, in questions of
fiscal and internal administration, the spirit
of Cantonal egoism was not less rife than
it is at present. Moreover, they were all,
in the proper sense of the word, Conserva
tive Governments — founded upon privilege
and exclusion of the mass of the people from
political power — satisfied to remain station
ary in this system, doing nothing in the way
of correction or amelioration, and leaving the
separate communes in the Cantons to their
own management or mismanagement ; but
prudent in respect to their finances, and true
to the old Swiss idea of keeping a public
fund in hand bearing interest. During the
last years before 1830, however, a public
feeling was gradually growing up against
these oligarchies ; so that even before the
French Revolution of July, the people of
some Cantons had begun to demand, and that
of Tessin had actually obtained, a measure of
popular reform. But the Revolution of July

44 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
roused the public mind throughout nearly all
Switzerland : during the few years following,
the Governments of Berne, Zurich, Argau,
Soleure, Lucerne, Friburg, Schaffhausen,
Thurgau, St. Gallen, and Glarus, became all
popularized ; the changes being carried without
bloodshed, but by the same sort of intimidation
which, in 1832, pushed the English Reform
Bill through the House of Lords — meetings
and demonstrations of sentiment such as the
actual Governments were unable to resist.
These movements — directed to obtain re
cognition of the sovereignty of the people,
with an elective franchise exercised by the
people alike in town and country — were
properly Radical movements, just as the party
in power to which they were opposed was
Conservative ; it was then that the denomi
nations Radical and Conservative became
current in reference to the two opposing
parties ; and they have continued to be so
applied after their fitness and appropriate
meaning had to a great degree ceased.
During the years immediately after 1830,

LETTER II. 45
the Governments of most of the Cantons
became thus thoroughly popularized. The
privilege of town over country which had
been the characteristic mark of the previous
oligarchies, was first diminished and has been
subsequently effaced ; for though in the first
changes an artificial preponderance was still
left to the town in the number of its re
presentatives compared with those of the
country, such preponderance has since been
annulled, and the suffrage has become prac
tically equal and universal. Moreover, the
Great or Legislative Council was exalted to
be the controlling superior of the Executive ;
it debated publicly, under the stimulus of an
active press, with meetings, and all the ex
aggerated movement of a vigorous political
life. The preceding Conservative function
aries were replaced by men of the move
ment and either retired from public life or
were thrown into opposition. To regain
power as avowed Conservatives, or champions
of the old privileges, was impracticable ; they
were obliged to accept and work under the

46 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
popular forms, by appealing to some feeling
in the public mind ; and it was in this
manner that religion came to be invoked as a
weapon of excitement for political purposes.
The first memorable manifestation of this
new phase of Swiss political life took place
on the 6th of September, 1839, at Zurich ;
where the Radical Government was violently
overthrown, in consequence of their nomi
nation of Dr. Strauss to a chair of theology.
Not only did the political opposition in the
Council, the public, and the press, raise the
most vehement outcry against this appoint
ment, but the clergy (most of whom had
received their appointments from, and sympa
thized with, the prior Government before
1830) employed their pulpits in the most
direct and exciting manner against the Go
vernment ; which was obliged to give way,
and cancel the nomination. Had the matter
stopped here, no one (whether assenting with
their opinions or not) would have had any
right to blame them. But having gained
this point, they found the path too promising

LETTER II. 47
not to push on farther. They organised
what were called Committees of Faith,
composed of clergymen as well as laymen ;
preached insurrection throughout the villages
adjoining Zurich ; prevailed upon a large
number of the rural population to take up
arms under the cry of " Religion in danger,"
and marched into the town to put down the
Government by force. A clergyman named
Hirzel was actually at the head of these
armed assailants; who overpowered the re
sistance opposed to them, and drove the Ex
ecutive Council out of the city. One of the
members of that Council, Dr. Hegetschwyler,
in endeavouring to restore peace, was among
those slain in the streets. This violent
revolution — in consequence of which the
Government of Zurich passed entirely into
the hands of the politico-religious party (still
called Conservative) who had made it — took
place at the time when not only Zurich was
presiding Canton of the Confederation, but
when the Diet was actually assembled in the
town.

48 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
If the religious feelings of the population
admitted of being turned so profitably to party
account in a Protestant Canton like Zurich,
much more could they be so employed by
Catholic leaders and priests amidst a Catholic
population. Aud this was the movement
which really took place in those Catholic
Cantons which had been liberalized after 1830.
In Lucerne and Soleure — and even in Friburg,
though to a less decided extent — new and
popular constitutions had been promulgated
in 1831, and the Government had come into
the hands of the leading Liberal politicians
in the Cantons. The old Conservative party
and the Ultramontane priests joined to form
an opposition against them : and though the
Lucerne Government had given no such
plausible ground to that opposition as the
nomination of Dr. Strauss furnished at Zurich,
nevertheless the ascendancy of the Catholic
hierarchy and clergy was sufficiently cramped
by the constitution of 1831 to induce them
to raise the cry of danger to religion. The
year 1840 was the year predetermined for

LETTER II. 49
submitting the constitutions of Lucerne,
Soleure, and Argau, to decennial revision.
In the elections which took place in the first
half year of that year throughout the Canton
of Lucerne, for choosing a constituent body
empowered to review and propose amendments
in the constitution of 1831, the party called
Conservative, with the Ultramontane clergy,
were completely successful, and a majority of
the constituent body were chosen in a sense
hostile both to the existing constitution and
to the existing Government. This change
was effected in a manner constitutional and
pacific, very different from the revolution at
Zurich in the preceding year ; but it was
effected under a similar rallying cry, and gave
a triumph to reactionary influences in both
Cantons, which were at first in hearty sympathy
with each other.
The new constitution framed by these so-
called Conservatives, and accepted by the
people of Lucerne in 1841, was, however, no
return to Conservatism as it had stood be
tween 1815 and 1830. On the contrary, it
D

50 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
was a great deal more Radical (measuring
Radicalism by the extent of direct power
given to the people) than that which the
Radicals themselves had framed in 1831.
The grand object was to enlarge the power
of the Catholic ecclesiastics, and to render
them as completely independent of lay au
thority as the people could be persuaded to
tolerate. The constitution of 1831 had been
a representative Democracy: that of 1841
(called by some Swiss writers a Theocratic
Ochlocracy) introduced, among other changes,
the popular veto, or power of submitting to
the vote of the people throughout the
Canton, all laws passed by the Legislative
Council. On the supposition that this Coun
cil should pass any law unacceptable to the
priests, the priests had thus a good chance of
procuring its rejection by the people. By
enfeebling the lay ascendancy, more room
was made for the ecclesiastical. To illustrate
the interest of the Catholic ecclesiastics in
this arrangement, we may mention, that in
the Canton of Valais, where their power is

LETTER II. 51
greater- than in any other part of Europe,
and where (as has already been observed)
they even enjoy complete immunity from
taxation for their large property, as well as a
special jurisdiction for their persons — in the
Valais there subsists not merely the popular
veto, but even what is called the referendum ;
that is, every law passed by the Representative
Council not only may, if required, be sub
mitted to the vote of the primary assemblies,
but it must in every case be so submitted,
before it acquires validity.
In the Canton of Zurich, the party which
acquired power by the revolution of 1839,
lost it in 1845 by the quiet change of
electoral majority — partly from causes which
will presently be explained, but partly also
from the shame now felt for the means
whereby that revolution was accomplished.
In the Canton of Lucerne, the case is other
wise : the party who acquired power in 1841
have retained it ever since; and to them,
more than to any other cause whatever, the
subsequent bitter dissensions of Switzerland,
d2

52 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
as well as the present almost inextricable
embarrassments in the way of future union,
are to be traced. They are animated with
an indefatigable Ultramontane zeal, and have
constituted themselves the central point of
Catholic Switzerland, for the protection and
extension of the political interests of that
church. Of the way in which this disposition
has been manifested more will be said in
a future letter : but it is impossible to
comprehend the present condition of Swiss
politics unless we go back to that alliance of
clerical aggressiveness and ambition withjthe
employment of religion as a party enginejby
Conservative or Anti-Radical politicians,
which first manifested itself in Zurich and
Lucerne in 1839 and 1840.

53

Letter III.
Sept. 18, 1847.
It has already been stated, in the pre
ceding letter, that the Cantons of Soleure
and Argau were destined to a revision of
their political constitutions (both established
in 1831) during the course of 1840, in like
manner with Lucerne. Soleure is entirely
Catholic : Argau is a Canton of parity, di
vided between Protestants and Catholics in
the proportion of about three-fifths to two-
fifths, but recognising equality of political
rights between the two confessions. In both
these Cantons, Ultramontane tendencies, the
same as in Lucerne, had been active since
1831: "Catholic unions," formed throughout
most of the villages in these Cantons, as well
as in the Catholic portion of Berne, were
worked through public meetings and the
press, as well as by the pulpit and the
confessional, to inculcate the religious duty
incumbent on Catholics of liberating the

54 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
hierarchy from civil control, and aggrandizing
them at the expense of the civil power; and
so impatient did this feeling become, that the
Catholics near Porentru in Berne, as well as
those in the neighbourhood of the convent of
Muri in Argau, actually rose in armed in
surrection against their Governments in the
course of 1835. Both movements were put
down by military force, and in both cases the
parties concerned were treated with remark
able mildness. Proceedings by violence were
thus repressed ; but the Ultramontane agi
tation still continued, and reached its height
during the year 1840, appointed for revision.
On that occasion, the party might well hope
to obtain their purpose by pacific means :
and as they had been completely successful
in the elections in Lucerne during the first
half of that year, so they were encouraged to
anticipate the same result in Soleure and
Argau during the last half. At that time,
there were eight monasteries in the Canton
of Argau — four of nuns and four of monks ;
two of the latter, Muri and Wettengen, both

letter iii. 55
rich. These convents were, throughout 1840,
the great seats of the politico-religious agita
tion then going forward. While the leaders
from the three Cantons held meetings and
concerted their measures there, the ample
funds of the convents were not spared for
the movement ; which was impressed upon
the neighbouring population as a religious
cause in the strictest sense, and enforced as
well by the strongest appeals which the
Catholic faith and the authority of priests
and monks could furnish, as by unmeasured
cries of irreligion against opponents.
Notwithstanding these strenuous efforts,
however, the movement was not successful
either in Soleure or in Argau. In both of
them, the revising assemblies proposed pro
jects of amended constitutions, containing
neither that extension of Catholic privilege
as compared with Protestant, and Catholic
church-power as compared with lay-power —
nor that introduction of direct appeal to the
people in veto or referendum — which the lead
ers in this triple Cantonal agitation demanded:

56 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
their projects were submitted to the votes of
the general body of citizens, and sanctioned
by large majorities. Respecting the Canton
of Argau, two circumstances deserve notice —
First, that the constitution of 1831 (then
under revision) not only placed the Catholics
under no political disadvantages as compared
with the Protestants, but even gave them
more than reasonable privileges ; for in spite
of their inferior numbers, and their still greater
inferiority in wealth, industry, and intelligence,
it secured to them a numerical half of the
members of the Great Council. Secondly,
although there were thus no real political
grievances of Catholics to be removed, never
theless the revising Council was at first so
influenced by the powerful agitation going
forward, that they proposed a scheme of
constitution in which a portion of the Catholic
claims were conceded ; and this scheme, on
being submitted to vote, was rejected, not
merely by Protestants, who thought the con
cessions unreasonable, but also by the Catholics
themselves, who despised them as insufficient,

LETTER III. 57
and thought that a second trial with persever
ing efforts would extort more. But they were
disappointed : the attempt at conciliation
having failed, the second scheme which was
proposed made no unreasonable concessions
to Catholic demands — proceeded upon reason
and justice — and was accepted by a large
majority of the citizens on the 5th January,
1841. Even this constitution, however, (the
one still subsisting,) though it did not grant
the Catholic demands, is still politically such
as to favour Catholics at the expense of
Protestants. For the Argovian Executive
Council consists of nine members, of whom
four must be Catholics and four Protestants ;
the ninth may belong to either confession.
The Supreme Judicial College is divided in the
same manner. Considering the inferiority ®f
the Catholics in number, (not to mention
other points of inferiority,) the constitution,
even as it now stands, thus gives them justice
and something more. It is right to add, that
these revisions were, on almost all points,
material improvements on the constitutions
d3

58 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
as they had stood before, both in Argau and
Soleure. These two votes, both in Soleure and Argau,
took place nearly at the same time ; and the
disappointment as well as exasperation of
those who guided the systematic agitation
which pervaded both Lucerne and these two
Cantons was extreme. Not choosing to
acquiesce in the pacific solution which had
gone against them, they had recourse to arms :
simultaneous risings took place bothin Soleure
and Argau, with the instigation and concur
rence of the brother agitators in Lucerne.
In Argau, that rising took place among the
Catholic population of the Southern districts,
or Freien Aemter, near to the borders of
Lucerne: it was in the immediate neigh
bourhood of the convents, whose inmates
fomented it in every way — their buildings
having been made places for the concealment
of arms and munitions, their funds employed
to distribute money, wine, and brandy, among
the insurgents — and their armed servants and
dependants in the foremost ranks of the latter.

LETTER II L 59
The purpose of the insurgents was to march
directly upon Aarau, the chief town of the
Canton, to overpower the Government, and
to erect their own portion of Argau into a
separate Canton apart from the rest — a little
Catholic neighbour and appendage of Lucerne.
They also did what they could to provoke a
simultaneous rising among the Catholics of
the Frickthal (on the northern side of the
Canton of Argau, near the left bank of the
Rhine, wherein are Laufenburg and Rhein-
felden). But these latter Catholics remained
quiet, and refused to take any part: they were
not in the neighbourhood or under the direct
influence of the convents.
It happened that both the Government of
Soleure and that of Argau were strong enough
to suppress these dangerous risings: the latter,
however, only by the aid of troops from Berne.
The Catholic insurgents in the Freien Aemter
were put down and disarmed : the insurgent
leaders both from Soleure and Argau, as
well as the monks out of the implicated
convents, fled to Lucerne for refuge : some

60 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
of the parties seized were tried before the
ordinary courts of justice, but neither as to
person nor property was any extraordinary
severity displayed towards them. As a con
sequence of this insurrection the Argovian
Great Council was forthwith assembled, and
one of its first measures was to decree the
suppression of the convents. Provision for
life was made for the existing inmates :
subject to this deduction, all the remaining
conventual properties were consecrated to
the religious worship, the instruction, the
charitable purposes, and general welfare, of
the Catholic communes in the district
around — those very communes most of which
had just been engaged in actual insurrection.
That this suppression of convents sprang
neither from rapacity nor from any feeling
hostile to Catholic citizens or the Catholic
faith, is sufficiently shewn by the act of ap
propriation last-mentioned — the application
made of the property : moreover, the decree
was proposed in Council by one of the leading
Catholics in Argau — Angustin Keller, Di-

LETTER III. 61
rector of the Catholic Seminary — and received
the support of many Catholic members.
There is, however, in the Federal Pact an
Article expressly relating to the convents,
guaranteeing their perpetuity as they were
found in 1815, so far as the Cantons in which
they stand are concerned : this twelfth Ar
ticle is historically known to have been
inserted at the urgent instance of the Papal
Nuncio, contrary to the wish of most of the
Cantons even in their then reactionary spirit.
When the Diet assembled shortly after this
transaction, the Canton of Lucerne preferred
loud complaints against the suppression of
the Argovian convents, as a robbery, an out
rage on the Catholic faith, and a direct vio
lation of the twelfth Article in the Pact ; the
plenary application of which Lucerne invoked
at the hands of the Diet — total, unconditional,
and compulsory restitution of all the convents
and their property. The Deputy of Argau
defended the act of his Canton by alleging
the flagrant rebellion of which the convents
had recently been accomplices and instigators :

62 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
such appeal to arms on their part had forfeited
their title to the Federal guarantee, and
rendered their continuance inconsistent with
the security and authority of the Cantonal
Government. Though the sentiment of the
majority of the Diet was unfavourable to the
recent proceeding of the Canton of Argau,
they nevertheless did not go so far as to
accede to the proposition of Lucerne : the
majority passed a resolution disapproving
generally what had been done by Argau, and
requiring that it should be modified, but
without expressly prescribing how. The
Argovian Government was constrained to
conform to this sentiment, and offered to
restore three out of the four suppressed female
convents : this compromise, however, was not
deemed sufficient to satisfy an entire majority
of the Diet, and the question remained under
long and angry debate during the sittings
both of 1841 and 1842 — no majority being
obtained for any positive conclusion. At
length, in the session of 1843, the Canton of
Argau enlarged its offer of compromise by

LETTER III. 63
proposing to restore all the four suppressed
female convents. So enlarged, the offer was
held to be satisfactory by the majority of
the Diet, and a vote was passed in the
session of 1843 to treat the subject as set
tled : not without the strongest protest,
however, from a considerable minority,
including Lucerne.
The question of the Argovian convents
was thus closed, as far as the majority of the
Diet could close it ; but it has been revived
in discussion over and over again ; and even
during the present year, M. Bernard Meyer,
the Deputy of Lucerne, pronounced it to have
been the beginning of all the present evils of
Switzerland. He chose to call it a beginning,
and to forget the circumstances which had
preceded : and your correspondent, " A
Genevese," in inquiring why the Diet did not
interfere to protect the property of the
Argovian convents, appears to treat the sup
pression as if it were a simple question between
a robber on one side and a party robbed on
the other ; though in reality there is no inci-

64 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
dent with respect to which it is more essential
to observe his own admonition, " not to state
an affair as a mere question of law, without
reference to antecedent circumstances." If
ever there was a proceeding which grew out
of, and was imperiously driven on by, antece
dent circumstances, it was the suppression of
the convents of Argau. In my judgment, the
Diet interfered in enforcement of the Pact
quite as far as the case justified them, not to
say farther : they procured the restitution of
four convents out of the eight : and if the
" Genevese " thinks that they ought to have
taken up and executed the demand of Lucerne
for total and unconditional restitution, I dis
sent from his view. To compel the restitution
of the convent of Muri — probably the insti
gator of the insurrection among the Catholics
around it in 1835, and certainly the foremost
among the rebellious convents in 1841 —
would have been a blow not merely to Cantonal
government, but also to all civil government
as compared with ecclesiastical immunity,
more worthy of the time of Gregory the

LETTER III. 65
Seventh than of the nineteenth century. In
the Catholic kingdoms of Bavaria and Austria,
how many days' purchase would the existence
of a convent be worth, if its monks were
strongly suspected of having raised a first in
surrection, and certainly known to have raised
a second? Estimate Cantonal rights as low
you will, no reasonable man will believe that
the Cantons who signed the Pact of 1815
intended to guarantee the inviolability of
convents caught in flagrant rebellion.
As we descend from 1843 down to the
present time, we shall find that one party-
wrong begets another ; and if we are to look
for what M. Meyer calls the beginning, we
must go back farther than the suppression of
the Argovian convents. Such suppression,
under the particular circumstances of the
case, may well be contended to have been no
wrong at all, but a step justified by the past,
and essential as a protection and remedy for
the future : if we even admit that it was a
wrong, we must at the same time admit that
it grew out of a previous wrong — the re-

66 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
bellion of the convents. That rebellion,
connected both in time and in origin with
the rising against the Government of Soleure,
was the last resort of a widespread political
religious agitation, and of a string of active
" Catholic unions " which pervaded the Can
tons of Lucerne, Argau, Soleure, and Catholic
Berne, during the years immediately pre
ceding 1841. These Catholic unions had of
course the fullest right to enforce their views
by public discussion and appeal. Nay, let us
even grant, large as the concession is, that they
had a right to resort as they did to an un
scrupulous employment of religious hopes and
fears, to promise the blessing of the saints
and to denounce opponents as heretics be
yond the pale of salvation, for the purpose of
procuring such changes as they desired in the
political constitution — still the votes of the
whole people were collected on the subject
of this constitution, the decision was against
them, and there their rights ended. To take
arms against that decision was a political
wrong, not only clear and decisive, but un-

LETTER III. 67
provoked, unbegotten, by any previous wrong.
It was the cry of " Religion in danger," em
ployed to put arms into the hands of Catholic
insurgents, just as the same cry, sixteen
months before, had been successfully used by
Protestants to overthrow by force the
Government of Zurich : and the Capuchin
friar who, in January 1841, headed the Ar
govian Catholic insurgents on their march
against Aarau, forms a parallel to the Pro
testant clergyman M. Hirzel who, on the
6th September, 1839, conducted the armed
zealots of the country round Zurich into that
city. The same phenomenon appears in
both — the intrusion of direct and violent
religious agency in politics ; by the Conserva
tive Protestants, as an antithesis and diversion
to political Radicalism ; by the Catholic
leaders, as a nominal reinforcement of popu
lar control, but a real transfer of power from
the laity to the priesthood. This phseno-
menon manifests itself largely throughout the
Swiss world towards the period which we
are now examining; and it requires to be

68 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
understood if we would follow the train of
events down to the Jesuits and the Sonder
bund. For a certain time, these two move
ments are in sympathy with one another:
leaders at Zurich opposed to Radicalism in
their own Canton, were not displeased to see
it exaggerated in name, but degraded into a
secondary force and becoming a mere imple
ment of the altar, although by a Catholic
hierarchy, in the Catholic Cantons; and, in
1841, the Government of Zurich, then pre
siding Canton, friendly to Lucerne and hostile
to Argau, was even displeased with Berne
for having furnished those troops to the
Argovian Government, which enabled it
promptly to put down the insurrection. This
sympathy between the Government, called
Conservative, at Zurich, which acquired
power by the insurrection of the 6th Septem
ber, 1839 — and the Ultramontane Govern
ment of Lucerne, since 1840 — proved after a
certain time the cause of the overthrow of
the former ; the subsequent conduct of Lu
cerne, as will be hereafter mentioned, having

LETTER III. 69
been such as to alienate the population of
the Canton of Zurich.
As to the question of Federal right in
volved in the suppression of the convents,
the majority of the Diet must be held to be
the only competent judges, — unless, indeed,
we are to admit the doctrine now laid down
by the Sonderbund, that every Canton has a
right to interpret the Pact for itself; in
which case, the Canton of Argau would of
course be as much in the right as its oppo
nents. According to the verdict of that
majority, the suppression of the convents of
monks must be held to have been justified
by sufficient reasons ; that of the other four,
not justified. The Government of Argau,
having at first partially done wrong, made
expiation, and put itself right with the Diet.
This is a matter to be recollected when we
come to discuss the recent conduct of the
Sonderbund. But, apart from the question of right,
how far were the Catholics of Argau gainers
or losers by the suppression ? Whoever

70 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
reads one of the most interesting books pub
lished in modern times — the Autobiography
of the historian Zschokke, of Aarau — will find
an authentic account of three out of the eight
monasteries as they stood in 1833, seven
years before the suppression; especially of
the convent of Muri. M. Zschokke, together
with two Catholic gentlemen, was named
Inspecting Visitor of the Monasteries by
the Argovian Government. He found the
population around the convent of Muri the
idlest, poorest, most, barbarous, and most
ignorant, in the whole Canton : a long train
of able-bodied beggars of both sexes to be
seen at the doors of the monastery, dirty and
in rags, receiving, distributions of soup from
the kitchen — but exhibiting the lowest aver
age both of physical and moral well-being
throughout the neighbouring villages. Un
questionably, the Catholic population around
the monastery has been the real gainer by its
suppression: the Cantonal Government has
acquired nothing in a pecuniary point of view,
but it has gained unspeakably in respect of

LETTER III. 71
assured position, by being relieved from a rich
establishment always ready to pay for an in
surrection among the neighbouring Catholics,
on the strength of its assured Federal in
violability, whenever the priestly party in
Lucerne might be disposed to give the word.
The present sentiment of these Catholic
parts of Argau has now become much more
favourable towards their own Cantonal Go
vernment ; and it deserves to be mentioned,
that they, as immediate neighbours of Lu
cerne, were the great sufferers by the severe
measures which the Lucerne Government
adopted last winter to restrict the exporta
tion of provisions : they were obliged to throw
themselves on their own Government, which
made unavailing applications to Lucerne for
relaxation. This transaction has tended not
only to alienate their feelings from Lucerne,
but also to throw them into connexion with
the markets of Zurich ; a tendency which
will probably be farther facilitated by the
railway recently opened from Zurich to
Baden, the central point of Catholic Argau.

72 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
The compromise respecting the Argovian
convents was carried into effect in the spring
of 1843 : an explanation of that event with
its preliminary circumstances has been un
avoidably necessary, partly because it pro
duced a great effect on Federal proceedings,
partly because it ushered in the state of
things in 1843, which will be touched upon
in the next letter. The Presidency of Lu
cerne occupies the years 1843 and 1844;
and the Presidential conduct of that Canton,
(especially in regard to the revolution of
Valais, to be hereafter noticed,) constitutes
the immediate preliminary to the Jesuits, the
Corps Francs, and the Sonderbund.

73

Letter IV
Sept. 25, 1847.
The years 1843 and 1844, as has been men
tioned in the last letter, were the presidential
years of the Canton of Lucerne. Such ex
ercise of the Federal executive authority, not
by any special magistrate or council, but by
the Council of one or other of the three
directing Cantons, has of course the incon
venience, among many others, of causing the
employment of Federal authority to be more
or less guided by the politics actually pre
valent in each of the three. In the project
of reform drawn up by M. Rossi and the
Commission of 1833, this inconvenience was
pointed out, and a special Federal Executive,
apart from all the Cantonal Governments but
under the control of the Diet, was proposed
to be created. More or less partiality in the
management of the directing Canton is cer
tain, and has been witnessed in Berne and
Zurich as well as in Lucerne. But in the
E

74 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
conduct of the latter during 1844, such par
tiality exceeded all pardonable limits, and all
former parallel: it degenerated into grave
and manifest treason, and contributed essen
tially to rouse against that Canton the strong
animosity, which we shall find breaking out in
December 1844 and April 1845.
Though Lucerne in these last months of
1844 was thrown upon the defensive, and
suffered from the wrongful assaults of others,
the case was otherwise during the time which
preceded : that Canton was then the forward
and aggressive mover. I have already noticed
the politico-religious agitation throughout the
Catholic unions in Lucerne, Soleure, and
Argau, and Catholic Berne, down to 1841 :
the defeat of the insurrections in Soleure and
Argau disappointed without extinguishing
the Ultramontane spirit. Shortly after Lu
cerne came to the presidency, the Govern
ment of Argau found itself exposed to farther
agitation, and to fresh attempts at insurrection;
which, however, it was strong enough to put
down. Lucerne became associated with the

LETTER IV. 75
League of Sarnen, to which it had stood
decidedly opposed previous to 1840. That
league was formed about 1832, for the pur
pose of resisting the Liberal or Radical
tendencies then current throughout Switzer
land : it consisted originally of Uri, Schwytz,
and Underwalden, to which subsequently
Friburg, Zug, and Lucerne, and lastly (after
the counter-revolution of 1844) the Valais,
became added : it is in fact an earlier stage
of the present Sonderbund, only that the
Sonderbund has been drawn tighter and pro
vided with a formal military organisation.
In the year 1843, the plan entertained, and
much talked of by the State Gazette of
Catholic Switzerland, (a journal then pub
lished at Lucerne,) was to form a great
separate league comprehending all the Ca
tholic Cantons, for the protection of the
Catholic religion against the oppression and
peril under which it was alleged to labour :
Soleure was to -be either gained over or
counter-revolutionized. M. Munzinger, the
Deputy of Soleure, read in the Diet during
e2

76 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
discussions of the present year 1847, the
plan of this great Catholic Sonderbund, which
Lucerne had circulated in his Canton during
the year 1843, but which found little favour
among the Solothurnian citizens : moreover,
the same scheme of a separate league was sq
distinctly announced in the resolution of the
Great Council of Lucerne of 20th October,-
1843, that both Berne and Zurich protested
against it as tending to the breaking up of
the Confederacy, and forwarded their protest
in circular to all the Cantons. In point of
fact the Catholic religion neither had then,
nor has now, any oppression to complain of
in Switzerland : if there were ground for com
plaint on the side of either of the two con
fessions, it would be with the Protestants,
who are excluded from all political rights in
Lucerne and its confederate Cantons, while
there is no analogous exclusion of Catholics
in the Cantons mostly Protestant.
It was during the year 1843 that the
political state of the Canton of Valais became
disordered, and that the foundation was laid

LETTER IV. 77
for Federal interference in its affairs. That
Canton is altogether Catholic : but the two
portions of which it consists — the Upper and
Lower Valaisans — are of different race and
language ; and down to 1 798, the latter,
although more numerous, having been origin
ally conquered by the former, remained their
subjects. Suspended or abated between
1798 and 1815, the privileges of the Upper
Valaisans were partially revived in 1815,
when an imperfect representative constitu
tion was established, with unjust preponder
ance to the Upper Valais, and with a large
fraction of the representation vested in the
Bishop of Sion. For several years after
1830, the Lower Valaisans attempted to
obtain a political reform, which was at length
finally accomplished in April 1840, after
opposition both of fraud and force on the
part of the Upper Valaisans aided by their
clergy, and after much indirect discourage
ment thrown in their way by the Conservative
Government of Zurich, then directing Canton
or Vorort.

78 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
The fate of the Liberal Government in the
Valais, at the head of which were the two
brothers Maurice and Joseph Barman, during
its short-lived career from April 1840 to
May 1844, forms one of the most melancholy
pages of recent history. Its leaders were
among the most patriotic and most instructed
men in the Canton : they went straight to
practical, genuine, and serious reforms, but
with strict respect for legal means, and with
as little offence as possible towards the pre
judices opposed to them : they stand charge
able with various faults of weakness and
misjudgment, but the greatest of all their
errors was that they could not shake off their
expectation of honourable dealing from un
scrupulous antagonists. They had to deal
with a system, fiscal, judicial, and administra
tive, which included ancient abuses in all
their luxuriance; and with a people, igno
rant and bigoted, whose minds are much
more obedient to their religious than to their
political superiors. The state of these reli
gious superiors, the Catholic hierarchy and

LETTER IV. 79
clergy, is indeed enviable: their large pro
perties are exempt from taxation, by a con
tinuance of the old privilege of the middle
ages, while their persons are subject only to
the jurisdiction of their own order. If a
priest stands charged with grave crime, such
as infanticide, or highway robbery, he is
taken before the episcopal authority, and
detained for examination: by some unac
countable negligence, he presently escapes,
nor has any example been known of a priest
being actually punished. Their education,
and indeed the whole education of the Valais,
such as it is, is and has long been under the
superintendence of the Jesuits.
The wonder seems rather to have been,
how a good and liberal Government ever
became established in the Valais at all : per
haps this might never have come to pass, if the
excitement of the Lower Valais prior to the
revolution of 1840 had not been permitted
at least, if not favoured, by the clergy in that
region. And while the disadvantages of the
position were thus serious, even the men who

80 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
had stood most ardent and forward in that
excitement did not afterwards act in such a
manner as to lend effective support to the
Government which they had themselves con
tributed to set up. The most pronounced
among them formed the society called Young
Switzerland ; who, while they found them
selves unavoidably in collision with the pri
vileges of the clergy, and amidst a controversy
carried with great exasperation on both sides,
took no account of the difficulties of the Go
vernment, but were harsh in their reproaches
because more was not done, and thus weak
ened a weak Government still further. The
clergy defended the maintenance of their pri
vileges by the most emphatic enforcements
and denunciations of the pulpit: and their
mode of warring with the political society
called Young Switzerland deserves particular
mention. The Bishop of Sion issued a man
date forbidding the clergy to administer the
sacraments to any member of Young Switzer
land, or to any of their relatives, or to any
reader of their journal called The Echo of

LETTER IV. 81
the Alps: it should be added, that the clergy
had at the same time a journal of their
own, called The Simplon Gazette, which em
ployed in their cause the most vehement
partisanship. The scandals which arose out
of this excommunication were monstrous, and
furnish a further example of the abuse of
religious agencies for political purposes by
the clergy of various Cantons of Switzerland.
Furthermore, in order to defeat constitution
ally those measures which were especially
odious to them, the clergy made efficient use
of their influence over the popular refer
endum : thus among other laws, one for
ameliorating the wretched system of public
education, and another for distributing mili
tary charges with an equality which did not
respect clerical immunities, were rejected by
the people after having passed the legislature.
Under these circumstances, the Lower
Valais became more and more the scene of
lawlessness and conflict between individuals of
different political parties. On the other hand,
the Upper Valais partook less in this discord :
e3

82 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
its inhabitants were more unanimous among
themselves, unfriendly to the Liberal Govern
ment from the beginning, and still more un
friendly to it in consequence of the continued
opposition of the clergy. In 1843, the elec
tion in the Canton returned a small majority
hostile to the Liberals; and an Executive
Council was constituted with a majority of
the same sentiments, yet not strong enough
to take any decisive part. It was under these
circumstances that the leaders of the Upper
Valais, with the connivance of the Executive
or at least of some of its members, carried on
for months together a secret and illegal
military organisation bf the inhabitants ;
marched to Sion in May 1844; were enabled
by the treachery of the Executive to forestal
and break the preparations of the disunited
Bas- Valaisans; became masters of theGovern-
ment, proclaimed the latter to be rebels, and
then, being joined by their own partisans
in the Lower Valais, vanquished them in
various encounters, especially on the river
Trient. In this defeat — with its consequence,

LETTER IV. 83
the complete extinction of the Liberal party
in Valais — there was more bloodshed, more
cruelty, and more brutality, than had ever
before been seen in the civil dissensions of
Switzerland. And to crown the whole, the
Bishop of Sion issued an order to his clergy
forbidding them to administer the sacraments
of the Church to the dying combatants of
the Liberal party. When we consider that
these combatants were Catholics, as well as
fellow-citizens, on the point of death, and
when we reflect besides on the consequences
which the Catholic Church connects with the
absence of the sacraments at such a moment,
it is difficult even to imagine thefeelings under
which so monstrous a mandate was issued.
The Government of the Valais, after the
elections of 1843 — if we are to call it by
that name — at least the majority of the Ex
ecutive Council, appears throughout this
transaction in the character of a conspira
tor : privy to the illegal organisation of the
Upper Valais — secretly conniving at it until it
was completed — issuing proclamations against

84 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
these Upper Valaisans, when known to be on
their actual march to Sion — directing them to
disband as an unauthorised and illegal arma
ment — keeping at a distance, by perfidious
assurances, the Lower Valaisan volunteers
under M. Barman, who had armed, though
unprepared, after and on the news of the actual
march of the Upper Valaisans, and who might
have got into Sion first, if they had not relied
upon such false assurances of the Government
— inviting the Upper Valaisans into Sion,
then immediately converting them from an
illegal body of Corps Francs into authorised
troops of the state, and making use of them
to crush the Lower Valaisans under M.
Barman, these latter being then proclaimed
as the only rebels, and delivered into the
hands of men more properly rebels than
themselves. To play such a part, was bad
enough in the Government of the Valais ;
but it was the climax of disgrace that the
presiding Canton Lucerne consented to play
the part along with them. It appears that
the illegal organisation of the Upper Valais,

LETTER IV. 85
known from the beginning to a portion of
the Executive Council of the Valais, was
still better known to the leaders in Lu
cerne, and concerted with them beforehand ;
M. Bernard Meyer, the Lucerne Secretary,
making private visits to the Canton during
the previous months as an underhand auxi
liary. On the 13th May, 1844, when the
Upper Valaisan volunteers were actually on
their march to Sion, M. Meyer appeared in
the latter town, carrying a commission of
Federal envoy in his pocket, to be produced
or not according as it might suit his views :
if the Lower Valaisans under M. Barman
had been victorious, he would have shewn
himself as commissioner, and would have
employed the Federal authority to arrest
their progress; but so long as the Upper
Valaisans were in full advance, he was a
partisan, attending the private meetings
destined to facilitate their entry into Sion.
As soon as they had entered that town and
received the recognition of the Government,
M. Meyer lent his best aid not only to the

86 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
maintenance of the new Government, but
also to the denunciation of the opposite
party as rebels. His conduct was from the
beginning that of an unscrupulous party-
man, infringing the most sacred obligations
incumbent on a Federal superior, and un
redeemed even by any sentiment either of
candour or of mercy towards the vanquished :
for his language, even at the subsequent
Diet, towards the Barmans and their fellow
exiles, who were in this case less of rebels
than the victors, was harsh and fierce in the
extreme. Lucerne received its reward by
the passing of the Canton of Valais into the
hands of the Ultramontane or clerical party,
and by its adjunction to the League of Sarnen.
It may be proper to mention — though
nothing of importance turns upon it in re
ference to the preceding narrative — that the
Executive of the Valais had, on the 4th May,
on the ground of the lawless state of the
country, sent a secret message to Lucerne
invoking Federal intervention. This pro
ceeding first became known in the Valais

LETTER IV. 87
itself through the newspapers of Lucerne;
and strong reproaches were addressed to the
Government for having done so ; upon which
the Government disavowed having made such
an application. They produced what they
affirmed to be the copy of their letter sent,
which differed from the letter received at
Lucerne ; there was some fraud or mystery
about this letter, which was not fully ex
plained. However the fact may stand as to
the letter of request, the presiding Canton,
on receiving it, issued a requisition for a
Federal army : which, partly from unavoid
able delays, partly from mistrust in some
of the Cantons invited to furnish it, was
not in a situation to enter the Valais until
after the complete victory of the Upper
Valaisans. The excitement which these events caused
throughout Switzerland was prodigious. The
combats at the river Trient and other places
in Valais, which had been disputed with
great bravery on both sides, and severe loss
to the vanquished — the harshness and cruel-

88 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
ties exercised by the victors — more than all,
the numerous body of exiles, many of them
the most respectable men in the Canton, who
fled with their wives and families into the
neighbouring Cantons of Vaud and Geneva,
to the sacrifice of their property and their
prospects, — all this was more than sufficient
to rouse throughout a large proportion of
the country both profound sympathy and
vehement indignation. Upon whom did
the public mind fasten as the authors of the
mischief? Upon the Jesuits, and upon the
Canton of Lucerne. Upon the second with
perfect truth, whatever may be thought
about the first. It was at this time, and in
this way, that the Anti-Jesuit movement first
began in Switzerland ; for we shall not pro
perly understand that movement unless we
take it (to use an expression of the late Lord
Eldon) " clothed in circumstances " — in con
nexion with its antecedents and accompani
ments. It has been already mentioned that the
Jesuits had for a long time been established

LETTER IV. 89
in the Valais, with control over the edu
cation both of clergy and people. But during
the years 1842 and 1843, this order appeared
in unusual activity. They perambulated the
Catholic Cantons publicly and ostentatiously,
as missionaries and special preachers— espe
cially Lucerne and the Valais ; never before
had so many Jesuits been seen in motion. In
the latter Canton, they denounced the Liberal
Government as impious and hostile to re
ligion ; and such was the effect of their
exhortations, that on various occasions the
assembled people who heard them swore to
rise in insurrection on the first summons.
Such language, indeed, was nothing different
from that which had been used by the Ca
tholic clergy generally, as well in the Valais
recently, as in Soleure, Argau, and Lucerne
in 1840, and by the Zurich Protestant clergy
in September 1839. But these Jesuit mis
sions were of all religious agencies the most
conspicuous to the public eye : they came
immediately previous to the misfortunes of
1844; they were blazoned by the Catholic

90 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
journals as having produced almost miracu
lous effects; and opponents were on this
occasion quite ready to credit the Catholic
statement literally — to believe that the
Jesuits had really done all the good ascribed
to them, or all the harm, as it would appear
from the opposite point of view. It is there
fore indisputable that the Jesuits had actually
been employed as instruments, in preaching
down the Liberal Government of the Valais,
by the native clergy and the politicians of
Lucerne ; and what they had really done was
enough to cause persons who already pro
foundly hated the Order to arraign them as
the master architects of the whole.
The 22nd May, 1844, saw the closing scene
of the melancholy tragedy in the Valais :
during the days immediately ensuing, the
agitation arising from it pervaded most of
Switzerland, and meetings were held in many
of the Cantons to demand the convocation
of an extraordinary Diet. Among the rest,
the Great Council of the Canton of Argau
was convoked for that purpose on the 28th

LETTER IV. 91
of May: the purpose was, to urge the pre
siding Canton to summon an extraordinary
Diet in reference to the recent events, and
to instruct the Argovian Deputies as to their
votes and proceeding. It was in this assem
bly that the name of the Jesuits was first
publicly denounced. Augustin Keller — a
distinguished Catholic, and the Director of
the Catholic Seminary in Argau, the same
person who three years before had proposed
the suppression of the Argovian convents —
moved that the Deputy of the Canton should
be instructed to demand from the Diet mea
sures for the expulsion of the Jesuits from
Switzerland ; that order being (he urged) the
great cause of the deplorable dissensions reign
ing throughout the country, and especially
of the recent calamities in the Valais.
In enforcing this point, he dwelt particu
larly on the Jesuit missions which a few
months before had made so much noise in
the Valais ; whilst he enlarged on the cor
rupt morals, slavish politics, and intrigues
against civil authority as well as against re-

92 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
ligious liberty, which marked the history of
the order. The motion of M. Keller was
carried in the Council of Argau by a large
majority: the Argovian Deputy was in
structed to make the proposition in the Diet
for expelling the Jesuits ; and a circular was
sent (according to custom) to the other Can
tons, to request that each would instruct its
Deputy in reference to the proposition.
Though the circular thus sent round for
discussion among the Cantons met with no
favour at that time in the various Great
Councils, it was enthusiastically welcomed
among the Liberal Swiss public without, and
had of course presented itself to many of
them as well as to M. Keller. It precisely
harmonized with the existing state of their
minds, overflowing with sympathy for the
suffering Valaisans, and with indignation for
the treacherous means whereby the late
counter-revolution had been consummated:
it presented to them an old enemy as the
author of a new mischief — an enemy who
certainly had sown some tares among the

LETTER IV. 93
wheat, and was not wanting in will to have
sown the whole field — an enemy, moreover,
against whom some definite resolution ad
mitted of being taken. It was in this temper
that the proposition was received at various
meetings, especially at the periodical meeting
of Swiss rifle-shooters from all parts of the
Confederation, which took place on the 30th
June, 1844, at Basle. These shooting meet
ings are in many respects the parallel of the
ancient Greek festival games : they serve the
same purposes of keeping alive the national
sympathies and supplying the defects of a
very loose political union. Abundance of
speeches on the political topics of the day
are usually delivered by various orators at
these meetings, which are largely frequented
by the more ardent Liberal politicians from
all the Cantons. The calamities of the
Valaisan Liberals — expulsion to the Jesuits
— indignation against Lucerne as an accom
plice in these calamities — were among the
prominent matters which agitated the feel
ings of this numerous and excitable assembly.

94 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
The successful Upper Valaisans hardly ap
peared, and their flag could not be kept up
among those of the other Cantons ; while the
defeated exiles, Messrs. Barman, were greeted
with the warmest sympathy, and subscriptions
were raised for the general body of Valaisan
sufferers. If the indignation against Lucerne and
M. Meyer was vehement at the time of this
shooting-meeting, it became greatly height
ened when the Diet was assembled, and
when the question of the Valais was dis
cussed, on the 13th July, 1844. M. Bernard
Meyer on that occasion occupied the chair
of the Diet ; and, replying to various crimi
nations from the Deputies of other Cantons,
he not only avowed, but actually boasted of,
the share ascribed to him in the counter
revolution of Valais. He admitted the
deliberate conspiracy and long-concerted
military organisation in the Upper Valais to
effect a counter-revolution, together with his
own previous knowledge as well as concern
in it ; he justified all the previous measures

LETTER IV. 95
by what he called the happy termination of
everything; and his fierce language against
the Liberals of the Bas- Valais, at that time
prostrate and in exile, would have been
hardly tolerable even had their antecedent
conduct been that of the most guilty rebels.
His speech excited indignant comments from
the Deputies of Vaud, Thurgau, and Soleure,
and contributed much to swell the previous
animosity against Lucerne. On the voting
of the Diet, no majority was obtained, either
to approve or to disapprove the conduct of
Lucerne : the approvers were only the seven
states constituting the League of Sarnen,
together with Appenzell Inner-Rhoden; while
the majority declared against all further in
terference of the Diet in the affairs of Valais.
The proposition of Argau for expelling the
Jesuits from Switzerland was brought before
the Diet ; but it obtained no votes except
those of Argau and Bale-Campagne — one
vote and a half. None of the Great Councils
in the other Cantons instructed their Depu
ties to support it, though it had become more

96 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
and more popular among the Liberal public
without. And in this state probably the
question would have rested, if the Jesuits
themselves had remained as they then stood
— established merely in Valais, Friburg, and
Schwytz. But in the months immediately
following, the important step was taken of
introducing them also into the presiding
Canton Lucerne, and that too under circum
stances in themselves eminently aggravating.
The two streams of feeling, each arising out
of the catastrophe in the Valais, but both at
first separate — the feeling against the Jesuits,
and that against Lucerne — became in this
manner confluent, each tending to exaggerate
the other. Their united force broke down
all the obligations of intercantonal morality,
and led to the flagrant political wrong com
mitted by the Corps Francs in invading
Lucerne;. at which point we shall arrive in
the next letter.

97

Letter V.
Oct. 2, 1847.
I recounted in my last letter how the Anti-
Jesuit feeling in Switzerland first arose, as a
direct consequence of the catastrophe in the
Valais ; how it rapidly got hold of the mind
of the Liberal public ; and how the expulsion
of the Order was first submitted to the Diet
in July 1844, on the proposition of Argau,
but obtained no votes except those of Argau
and Bale-Campagne. That same catastrophe
had also provoked a vehement animosity
against the presiding Canton, Lucerne, as
a treacherous accomplice in the counter-revo
lution of the Valais for the profit of Ultra
montane politics and of the Sarnen League.
It was at this period, and under this state
of Swiss feeling, that the Canton of Lucerne,
hitherto unconnected with the Jesuits, and
before 1840 decidedly adverse to them, de
termined for the first time to introduce them,
and to confide to them the care of its
F

98 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Cantonal education. The leading men in
the Canton knew perfectly well the storm
which it would excite among the larger half
of the Confederacy, as well as the resistance
which it would call forth from a large mino
rity of their own Cantonal citizens : lastly,
they knew how much it would offend the
expressed feelings, and even endanger the
stability, of those Cantonal Governments
which had declined to support the proposition
of Argau in the Diet. Of this latter fact,
the preceding debates in the Great Council,
and the instructious given to their Deputies
in the Diet, had presented sufficient warning.
The Great Council of Zurich had passed the
following resolution: — "The Deputy of Zurich
is instructed in the name of his Canton to
intimate the conviction that the Order of
Jesuits contributes by its doctrines as well as
by its missions to embitter the mutual re
lation between the Protestant and Catholic
confessions in Switzerland ; and that it thus
exercises a disturbing influence on the poli
tical harmony of the nation. The Canton of

LETTER V. 99
Zurich therefore expresses its regret that
some Cantons have received this Order
among them ; and intimates its wish, in the
spirit of confederate brotherhood, (den freund-
eidgenossischen wunsch,) that these Cantons
may withdraw from the influence of the
Jesuits, and that their fellow Catholic Can
tons may of their own accord resist the
farther extension of the Order." This was
the voice of a Great Council then in majority
Conservative, and of a Government in which
the Conservative Dr. Bluntschli was the
leading member : it was rendered, moreover,
yet more significant by the antecedent cir
cumstances. Ten thousand citizens of Zurich
(the total population of the Canton being
about 230,000 souls) had signed a petition to
the Great Council, praying that the vote of
the Canton might be given in favour of the
peremptory motion of Argau at the Diet : it
was known that these signatures had been
collected in a short time, and that the
sentiment which they represented was much
more widely spread. The Government of
f2

100 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Zurich resisted this petition, but resisted at
much disadvantage; for they could not take
the ground (nor were they disposed to take
it) that the admission of Jesuits into any one
Canton, especially into a presiding Canton,
was a matter in which the rest had no concern
— they admitted that it involved both mis
chief and danger to the whole Confederation.
" If you grant thus much," argued the sup
porters of the petition, " does not the spirit of
the Pact, and the general obligation of ensur
ing internal tranquillity which it expressly
imposes on the Diet, require the expulsion of
the Jesuits, though the letter may be silent?"
Dr. Bluntschli and his colleagues were here
unfavourably placed : against a strong popular
feeling supported by considerable plausibility
of reason, they had to maintain the danger
of going beyond a strict construction of the
Pact, except where extreme necessity might
compel an appeal to its spirit ; and to main
tain this principle — of cardinal importance,
yet appealing only to a far-sighted reason —
against exciting allusions to the great Pro-

LETTER V. 101
testant name of Zwingli, of which they had
themselves made so much use in rousing
the people to arms in September 1839. It
was evident that the resistance was ruining
their hold upon the Cantonal population ;
and in point of fact, the elections of the next
year put an end to their majority. Under
such circumstances, the friendly wish, ad
dressed to the Diet and to Lucerne by a
Conservative Cantonal Government, came
with double emphasis, conveying full warning
of the consequences if it were not wholly or
partially complied with. That wish was
addressed not merely by Zurich, but by the
many other Cantonal Governments who
thought the Jesuits a public mischief to the
Confederacy, without deeming themselves
authorised by the Pact to support a vote of
expulsion. Now, under such circumstances,
one may indeed assign sufficient reason why
those Cantons who already had Jesuits, and
who, moreover, were not presiding Cantons —
Friburg, Valais, and Schwytz — might decline
to comply with the request for dismissing

102 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
them ; but it is not easy to imagine how the
Canton of Lucerne, not already having them,
could bring itself to introduce them imme
diately afterwards for the first time — in direc*
contempt of the antipathy manifested by a
large portion of the Confederacy, and of the
"friendly wish" of another large portion,
expressed without the insulting appearance
of coercion. We must take this fact into
consideration when we look at the extraor
dinary excitement which follows : imme
diately after the people have put forth their
deep and widespread conviction that the
existence of Jesuits even in non-presiding
Cantons is mischievous to the entire Con
federacy, the very next following incident in
Swiss history is, that the Order, besides
maintaining itself in Friburg, Valais, and
Schwytz, makes the conquest of the presiding
Canton also.
It has been often attempted to bar all
such considerations by simply saying — "This
is a case wherein the Federal Pact imposes
no restriction, and gives to no other Canton

LETTER V. 103
a right of intervention : Lucerne chooses to
exercise its right of sovereignty ; and there
is an end of the matter." So the question
might be argued, indeed, simply and nakedly,
if there were a Federal Court about to give
judgment on it : but in the conduct of life,
the right of others to step in and hinder is
only one portion of a wider argument, and
cannot be discussed apart. There are a
thousand things which you' ought not to do,
though other persons may have no right to
hinder you from doing them : and if this be
true of a private man, still more is it true
of a statesman — most of all will it hold good
for the presiding Canton of a dissentient and
imperfectly cemented confederacy. As pre
siding Canton, you are under serious obliga
tions to the entire Confederacy: you are
made aware, that a large fraction of it con
strues the Pact so as to dispute your right
altogether; and that another large fraction,
admitting your right because they determine
to adhere to the strict letter of the Pact,
nevertheless pronounce the exercise of it to

104 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
be mischievous, and conjure you to abstain.
Surely this is a case in which it will not
suffice simply to assert and reassert that you
have an incontestable Federal right : the
exercise of the right must further be shewn
to be essential to some paramount individual
interest or individual duty. How far Lu
cerne took any pains to shew this, may be
judged by the language of M. Siegwart-
Miiller, then President of the Diet in that
town. " The Radicals and Protestants," said
he, " have poured out their venom on the
Jesuits everywhere: so much the more
necessary is it for those Governments who
love order to introduce the Jesuits." Here
the extreme, though unmerited odium, at
tached to the name of the Jesuits throughout
a large portion of the Confederacy, was ad
mitted, and converted into a positive reason
for introducing them into Lucerne. What
wonder that the harmony of Switzerland has
perished, when the directing Canton adopts
such maxims for its rule of proceeding ?
Shortly after the Diet, the question of in-

LETTER V. 105
viting the Jesuits into Lucerne, and confiding
to them the Cantonal education, was brought
into formal discussion before the Cantonal
Great Council. The missions of the Order
during the preceding year had been made to
work strongly on the public mind ; and the
majority of the Cantonal Education Council
had also pronounced in favour of introducing
Jesuit superintendence — not without a strong
protest from the minority, and vehement
marks of repugnance from a considerable
part of the population, especially in the town
of Lucerne. The discussion in the Great
Council was long and turbulent ; but the
proposition for admitting the Jesuits was
carried in the affirmative, by a large majority,
on the 24th October, 1844. It was sub
sequently submitted to the general body of
the citizens throughout the Canton, for the
exercise of their veto. Though nearly all
the citizens in the town of Lucerne voted
against it, a majority throughout the rural
districts declared in its favour, and it became
confirmed law.
f3

106 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
During the discussion of the measure in
the Great Council, the opposing minority
urged as one of their many grounds of ob
jection, that it violated one of the articles of
the constitution, and therefore could not be
entertained as an ordinary project of law,
but only under the forms and conditions pre
scribed for revisions of the constitution. This
objection was overruled by the majority ; but
it was nevertheless made the ground of a
formal protest, drawn up, signed, and pub
lished, by five of the leading members of the
minority, including among them Dr. Casimir
Pfyffer,one of the ablest jurists in Switzerland.
It represented moreover the full belief and
conviction of the Liberal minority throughout
the Canton, and aggravated their discontent
arising out of genuine hatred to the Jesuits.
So strongly did this discontent manifest itself,
at the moment when the law was accepted
by the majority of voting citizens, that the
Government was induced to arrest and im
prison many of the most forward Anti-Jesuits
in the town of Lucerne.

LETTER V. 107
It was at this point, the beginning of De
cember 1844, that the aggressions of the
Corps Francs commenced.
I have already described the different
feelings which had been roused in the
Liberal and Radical population of Switzer
land by the catastrophe in the Valais: in
dignation against Lucerne, for treachery in
discharge of the presidential duties — indig
nation against the Jesuits, whose missions
had been employed as instruments to bring
about the counter-revolution in Valais — and
both now materially heightened during the
preceding three months, by the conduct of
the Lucerne Government in adopting the
Jesuits, precisely at a time when the majority
of the Cantons express their friendly wish
that the Order might be dismissed even from
those Cantons where it previously existed ;
one of the actual reasons for such adoption
being, (as Mr. Siegwart Muller proclaimed in
the Diet ) that the Jesuits were unjustly hated
in many parts of Switzerland. To these feel
ings was now added a new cause of excite-

108 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
ment — sympathy for the minority in Lucerne;
who believed, and made others believe, that
their Cantonal constitution had been violated
for the purpose of introducing the Jesuits,
and who were suffering arrest and imprison
ment for their resistance in a cause emi
nently popular. All these feelings conspiring,
created in the Liberal and Radical public
throughout Switzerland, an animosity against
the Lucerne Government, so violent that
they lost all sense of political right and
wrong, and resolved to put it down by the
most unwarrantable employment of force.
The first Corps Francs who invaded
Lucerne were not numerous, and were
apparently altogether unorganised: the in
vaders had been apprised of the number of
malcontents in the town of Lucerne, and
expected that an insurrection would have
broken out there as soon as they were heard
to have crossed the border: but no insur
rection took place. The Government easily
repelled the invaders, and proceeded to very
severe steps against the malcontents, real

LETTER V. 109
and presumed, in the town. Many of them
were arrested and imprisoned ; while those
who escaped, or fled to avoid such treat
ment, were yet more numerous. During the
winter of 1844-45, there was not less than
1,100 exiles from Lucerne spread through
the neighbouring Cantons : and this con
tributed to aggravate still farther the pre
existing animosity against the Government
of Lucerne. It is to be remarked, that in
none of the various revolutions which Switzer
land has experienced, has there ever been
harsh treatment of a multitude of individuals,
or any numerous body of exiles spread through
the neighbouring Cantons, except in the two
cases of Valais in May 1844 and Lucerne
in the beginning of 1845. These are the
only two cases of political disturbance or
revolution in which there has been any severe
reaction, visited upon a number of individuals
within the Canton and driving a still larger
number out of it : and both of them produced
an extraordinary effect in exciting the violent
sympathies of the neighbouring Cantons.

110 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
In consequence of the first invasion of the
Canton of Lucerne by citizens from other
Cantons, on the 8th December, 1844, an
extraordinary Diet was summoned at Zurich,
(which had become presiding Canton on the
1st January, 1845,) at the beginning of the
following year. This Diet continued in
session for two months, until the third week
in March : resolutions were adopted strongly
condemning the Corps Francs or volunteers
violating by arms the territory of other Can
tons, and requiring each separate Canton to
incorporate in its legislation prohibition and
punishment of such persons. But the excite
ment in the Cantons surrounding Lucerne
was too great to be restrained by any sueh
efforts ; and some of the Cantonal Govern
ments had no sincere -desire to restrain it.
On the 30th of March, a second invasion of
the Canton of Lucerne was organised, in
conjunction with the exiles : this time, the
invaders were numerous, not unprovided with
artillery : and the plan of attack was concerted
deliberately beforehand, by Colonel Ochsenbein

LETTER V. Ill
and other considerable persons who ac
companied and took command of it. These
invaders or Corps Francs were formed of volun
teers from the four neighbouring Cantons of
Berne, Soleure, Bale-Campagne, and Argau ;
the Governments of which all connived at the
proceedings. Colonel Ochsenbein with his
division and cannon actually reached the
suburb of Lucerne, though not until nightfall :
it is alleged that had he immediately com
menced an attack, or fired a few shots, the
Government would have abandoned the town ;
but the account published by the Government
itself does not countenance such a supposition.
Lucerne was not unprepared for the attack,
and had organised an alliance with Uri, Zug,
and Unterwalden, for the purpose of defence :
the arrival of contingents from these allies on
the following day enabled it to defeat and
expel the invaders, many of whom were slain
by the Cantonal Landsturm in their flight,
while several hundred others remained as
prisoners. These two invasions of Lucerne by the

112 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND,
Corps Francs are so well known, and so
unanimously judged, as to dispense with the
necessity both of comment and detail. If T
take pains to gather together the antecedent
circumstances which caused the aggressive
feeling of the invaders, it is with no view of
justifying such a proceeding. It was a flagrant
and unquestionable public wrong, meriting all
the censure which has been since bestowed
upon it ; disgracing the country in the eyes
of Europe, and exposing the Swiss to hear
from foreign ambassadors lectures the more
galling because they admitted of no fair reply.
Its main effect has been to weaken and
hamper the party who committed it, and to
fortify the position, as well as to efface in part
the previous faults, of Lucerne. The preceding
circumstances do not at all divest this invasion
of its culpability ; but they are essential to
explain it — to explain that violent animosity,
under the influence of which so many citizens
of regular life and easy circumstances (the
Landsturm of Lucerne obtained from their
prisoners among the Corps Francs an abundant

LETTER V. 113
plunder, and in particular a large number of
gold watches) were induced to emperil their
lives and expend their money, besides throwing
aside the most obvious restraints of inter-
cantonal duty. The citizens of Argau and
Soleure, who took arms to assist the Lucerne
minority, recollected that the Catholic agita
tors of Lucerne had helped their minorities
to raise simultaneous insurrections, to the
infinite danger of both Governments, in the
beginning of 1841 ; while the Cantonal Go
vernments of Berne, . Soleure, Argau, and
Bale-Campagne, who connived at the orga
nisation and march of the Corps Francs
against Lucerne, had before them the pre
cedent of Lucerne itself a few months before,
when that Canton had been in privity and
deliberate connivance with the conspirators
who produced the counter-revolution in
Valais — and that, too, in abuse not merely
of Cantonal obligations, but of yet more
sacred duties as directing Canton. Lastly,
when it is indignantly remarked that Colonel
Ochsenbein, commander of the Corps Francs

114 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
in their invasion, is now in the exalted posi
tion of Chief Magistrate of Berne and Pre
sident of the Diet, we must remember that
he sees on his immediate left hand, as Deputy
of Lucerne, M. Bernard Meyer, the director
and instrument of Lucerne treachery in the
conspiracy of the Valais.
If it were important to take a comparative
estimate of the wrongs on both sides, we
might remark that those committed by Lu
cerne spring from a cause at once permanent
and fatal to the tranquillity of the Con
federacy — the spirit of Catholic Ultramon
tanism and aggrandizement ; while those of
the Corps Francs had their rise in a state of
excitement, which, however culpable, de
pended on a peculiar combination of recent
events, and was in its nature essentially tran
sitory. But in truth, such a comparison
would answer little purpose : the important
circumstance to remark is, that both wrongs
are real, and that the later of the two may
be traced back by a visible thread of causality
to the earlier. At the present moment, both

LETTER V. 115
parties in Switzerland have the conviction
that their opponents have acted wrongly to
wards them : in each, that conviction is well-
founded. " Convicia et probra invicem rix-
antes ingerunt : neuter falso." Herein lies
one of the great difficulties of finding any solu
tion for the existing complication of affairs.
I have touched upon the two expeditions
of the Corps Francs together, because both
grew out of one and the same state of excited
feeling. But between the dates of the two
(8th December, 1844, and 1st April, 1845,)
events of material importance took place —
the discussionon the subject at the Diet, and
the revolution in the Canton of Vaud.
At the previous Diet, in July 1844, only
one Canton and one Half-Canton had voted
for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Switzer
land : in the Diet of 1845, ten Cantons and
two Half-Cantons voted for the same propo
sition : so great was the difference made by
the fact of Lucerne, the presidential Canton,
having adopted them in the interval. Zurich,
presiding at the extraordinary Diet convoked

116 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
in January 1845, did not support the pro
position for expelling the Jesuits, nor recog
nise the competency of the Diet to do so :
but its circular address proclaimed in the
strongest manner the mischief, insecurity,
and discord, which the reception of the Order
into the Catholic directing Canton would be
sure to excite in Switzerland, and urgently
invited Lucerne to revoke its resolution.
It is to be remarked that the Jesuits had
not yet actually come into the latter Can
ton, though the law had been passed to
introduce them, (_The Zurich circular far
ther insisted that the character of the
Order was not to be considered as purely
religious, but as partly political, partly secta
rian and controversial : its direct aim being
to aggrandize the Church at the expense of
the State, and the Catholic religion at the
expense of the Protestant.J From the first
of these two tendencies, it is repugnant to a
large portion even of the Catholic world ;
from the second, it is placed in hostility with
the Protestants ; and both reasons concurred

LETTER V. 117
to render its admission into the presiding
Canton of Switzerland disastrous, as a direct
aggravation of the two great sources of
discord inherent in the Confederacy. The
language of the Deputy of Geneva, then
strongly Conservative, on the subject of the
Jesuits, was of the same tenour ; though
he voted against the resolution for expelling
them, on the ground of want of competence
in the Diet. There needs no farther argu
ment to shew that the Anti-Jesuit feeling in
Switzerland was a perfectly genuine and
substantive feeling — not a mere pretence
got up for the purpose of revolutionizing
the Pact, as so many persons have argued.
Here were Deputies expressing the same
Anti-Jesuit feeling as strongly as it could be
expressed, who yet would not support a
sentence of the Diet for expulsion. Indeed,
the whole past history of the Jesuits, from
the commencement of their Order, betokens
an organised and systematic teaching of re
ligion, not for religious ends, but as a means
for procuring political and social ascendancy:

118 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
other priests have done the same to a greater
or less extent, but none except the Order of
Jesus has become notorious as reducing it to
rule, craft, and professional duty. It was
against this tendency, not against any matters
essential to the Catholic religion, that even
the Catholic world protested in the last cen
tury, when the Order was abolished : it is
against the same tendency that the opponents
of the Order protest at present ; though they
doubtless greatly exaggerate its present power
to do mischief. The argument has often been
urged — "What prodigious harm can seven
Jesuits in Lucerne (the number at first intro
duced) effect, to justify such strong excite
ment ? " But it is to be recollected, that when
the Great Council of Lucerne first determined
to adopt the Jesuits, no one knew to what
extent they would be employed. There was
every reason to believe that they would be
made actively available in prosecution of
those Ultramontane intrigues which Lucerne
had been pushing, both as Canton and as
Vorort:' they had been so turned to account

LETTER V. 119
in the Valais, and their agency might be
indefinitely extended : moreover, it is to be re
marked that the name Jesuit cannot be
heard, on the Continent, without a cluster of
odious associations derived from the past —
and that the proclamation, " The Jesuits are
coming ! " is really more terrific than the men
so called when they stand before you in
flesh and blood. The Corps Francs invaded
Lucerne before the Jesuits were actually in
it: they did not invade Friburg, where the
Jesuits had been long established. It was the
double and confluent sentiment, against the
Jesuits and against Lucerne, which roused
them to the pitch of armed aggression.
It was on the 14th of February, 1845,
during the "sitting of the Diet, that the
revolution of Vaud occurred. Vaud is the
Canton immediately adjoining to Valais : its
citizens were almost witnesses of the battles
in the preceding May in that Canton, though
without taking the least part in them : its
surgeons and its ambulances went across the
border to administer succour to the wounded

120 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
on both sides : it received and fostered the
greater part of the exiled sufferers ; the two
chiefs of whom, Maurice Barman and Colonel
Joris, escaped into its territory only by
swimming the Rhone, after having exhausted
every effort of brave commanders. From all
these circumstances, the excitement in Vaud
arising out of the Valaisan catastrophe, was
unusually great ; and the two feelings in
which that excitement manifested itself —
animosity against the Jesuits, and animosity
against Lucerne — became proportionably ag
gravated. The Deputy of Vaud, though
the Government of the Canton was then
what is called Conservative, and did not
support the vote for expelling the Jesuits
in July 1844, expressed the strongest in
dignation when M. Meyer of Lucerne avowed
in that assembly his long cognizance of
the conspiracy for counter-revolutionizing
the Valais. If such was the strong feeling
general in Vaud in July 1844, much stronger
did it become during the months immediately
succeeding, when Lucerne, in defiance of the

LETTER V. 121
sentiment expressed throughout the larger
portion of Switzerland, passed the law for
admitting the Jesuits ; and when the Lucerne
minority, through the consequences of their
opposition to that measure, were cast into
banishment and spread through the sym
pathising Cantons. When the Great Council
of Vaud met for the purpose of instructing
their Deputy in prospect of the Diet con
voked for the last week in January, a petition
was presented praying that he might be
directed to support in the Diet two points
— expulsion of the Jesuits from Switzerland,
and amnesty for the Lucerne exiles. This
petition, signed by no fewer than 32,000
persons, was supported by a minority both in
the Executive and in the Legislative Council;
but the majority of both were opposed to it.
It was asserted by some of those who
opposed this petition — what has been so
often asserted of petitions emanating from
Swiss Radicals — that those who signed
it did not really care about the substantive
thing asked for, but only asked it as a means
G

122 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
to arrive underhand at the abolition of the
Cantonal sovereignty and the erection of an
Unitary Government in Switzerland. A
similar insinuation had been made in the pre
ceding month of July in the Great Council
of Zurich, by Dr. Bluntschli, in reference to
the 10,000 petitioners of that Canton, who
asked for the expulsion of the Jesuits: it
was a remark captious and unseasonable,
overleaping causes obvious and forcible in
order to arrive at others which were at once
weaker and more distant ; and it was likely
moreover to irritate petitioners who knew
themselves to be in earnest. How widely the
feeling displayed in the petition was diffused
throughout Vaud, is proved by the number
of signatures : for the total population of the
Canton is only 190,000 souls, and 32,000
signatures must represent seven-eighths of
the qualified voters under a system of
universal suffrage. According to political
maxims very widely diffused in Switzerland,
it was contended by the supporters of the
prayer of the petition, among other reasons

LETTER V. 123
for granting it, that this enormous majority
ought of itself to be imperative, and to
overrule any objection which the Council
might entertain. In England, no such gene
ral maxim would be admitted : but we may
safely assert, that if ever the time should
come when five millions of petitioners (about
the same proportion of our population)
demand anything at the hands of Parliament,
and are known to care for it intensely and
earnestly, that petition will not be refused,
even though it contain matter more question
able than the two items demanded by the
32,000 persons who signed in Vaud. The
majority of the two Councils in the Canton
of Vaud, refused to comply with the prayer
of the petitioners. To wait for the return of
the quinquennial elections, and then choose
a Council of different sentiments, (which
would have been the constitutional course,)
while in the mean time the Cantonal vote
would have been given in Diet to sustain the
Jesuits and the Government of Lucerne —
appeared intolerable to a population all ex-
G 2

124 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
cited on one and the same immediate point.
We may doubt whether even the English
people would have submitted thus to wait
if they had been baulked at the moment
of their feverish excitement about the Reform
Bill in 1832 : and it is to be noted, that no
Swiss constitution contains any provision
analogous to the power of discretionary disso
lution of Parliament by the English Crown.
The immediate result of the refusal of the
Councils was, that large numbers of armed
citizens from the neighbourhood, marched
into Lausanne ; while the Government, on
calling out the militia, found that this force
was disposed to act not against, but in unison
with, the insurgents. The movement through
out the Canton appears to have been not
less unanimous than passionate: the Councils
were forced to abdicate, and a Provisional
Government was formed, at the head of
which was M. Druey, the leader of Oppo
sition. It is right to mention, that in this
revolution no man sustained the least damage
either in person or property. A new con-

LETTER V. 125
stitution, more popular than the preceding,
was drawn up, and accepted by the people
during the ensuing summer : but in truth,
the preceding constitution had also been
very popular, and was so regarded even by
Radical writers who wrote during the year
1844 : so that the new constitution worked
no violent transfer of the seat of power, and
was more analogous to a change of Ministry
in England, with a dissolution of ParHament,
than to the ideas commonly suggested by
a revolution. The proceedings of the former Government
of Vaud, by which they had in part lost
popularity before this change, would be in
structive to remark upon, inasmuch as they
illustrate the subsequent conduct of the
pastors and the reaction against the latter
which manifested itself under the new Go
vernment. But upon these I do not touch,
since they have no direct bearing on the
Federal politics, to which the present letters
are chiefly confined.

126 .

Letter VI.
Oct. 9, 1847.
The perilous disposition to unauthorised em
ployment of force, whieh had pervaded
Switzerland during the winter of 1845, was
quenched by the repulse of the Corps Francs
from Lucerne on the 1st of April, disastrous
and humiliating to the last degree. The
Governments which had connived at it were
under the ignominious necessity of negotiating
with Lucerne for the ransom of their prison
ers ; which they obtained at the cost of
between 500,000 and 600,000 francs: besides
which sum, Lucerne claimed and received
from the Diet, assembled in July, a further
indemnity of 1 50,000 francs for damage sus
tained, out of the general Federal treasury.
Resolutions strongly condemnatory of Corps
Francs were again passed at that Diet ; and it
must be added that from the 1st April, 1845s,
to the present day, the peace of Switzer-

letter vi. 127
land, as between Canton and Canton, has
never once been disturbed : every one of the
Governments has manifested au unshaken
determination to maintain it, and to repress
individual " sympathisers," if they attempted
to march in armed bands across their own
Cantonal border.
But though the spirit of armed invasion
had thus been extinguished, the political
feeling continued unaltered ; and the elections
of 1845 in the Canton of Zurich returned a
majority in the Great Council which displaced
the Government called Conservative, the
offspring of the 6th September, 1839. That
Government had maintained, as long and as
much as it could, a sympathy with the Lu
cerne politics, which at length robbed it of
its popularity with the citizens of the Canton,
though none of the latter had taken part in
the expedition of the Corps Francs. In the
Diet of July, 1845, the expulsion of the
Jesuits from Switzerland was again discussed :
ten Cantons and two Half-Cantons voted for
it ; nine Cantons, including Geneva, against

128 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
it. St. Gallen did not vote at all ; its Great
Councilwere equally divided on the question,
75 for it and 75 against it.
To the question of the Jesuits, the one
great matter of controversy during 1845, was
added in the early part of 1846 the forma
tion of the armed separate league called
Sonderbund, between Lucerne, Uri, Schwytz,
Unterwalden, Friburg, Zug, and Valais.
Formal announcement of this league with its
conditions was made to all the Swiss Govern
ments : in point of fact, these same seven
Cantons had long before been connected by
a league called the League of Sarnen ; but
their new organisation, called the Sonderbund,
brought with it the important addition, that
it became professedly an armed confederation
— its members bound themselves to furnish
contingents of men and money and to obey a
common military authority — all announced
to be 'exclusively for purposes of common
defence. To this is to be added the still
more important fact, that the Cantons of the
Sonderbund not only bound themselves by

LETTER VI. 129
covenant to arm, but actually did arm and
organise themselves, providing means of
offence as well as means of defence. The
question was thus raised, Is a separate league,
thus armed and organised, contrary to the
Pact, the sixth Article of which says ex
pressly — " No alliances shall be formed by
the Cantons among each other, prejudicial
either to the general Confederacy or to the
rights of other Cantons?"
This question was brought before the Diet
at Zurich, for the first time, on the 4th Sep
tember, 1846, by the proposition of the
Canton of Thurgau to declare the Sonderbund
illegal. Ten Cantons and two Half-Cantons
voted in favour of this proposition, — Berne,
Zurich, Glaris, Soleure, Schaff hausen, Argau,
Tessin, Vaud, Thurgau, Grisons, Appenzell-
Exterieur, Bale-Campagne. The seven Can
tons of the Sonderbund voted against it,
together with Appenzell-Interieur. Neuf-
chatel, St. Gallen, Geneva, and and Bale-
Ville, did not vote at all, but referred for
fuller instructions to their Cantons. Neither
G3

130 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
on this question, nor on that of the expulsion
of the Jesuits, which was again discussed,
was any majority of the Diet obtained.
So these two questions stood over, to be
re-discussed in the Diet of the present year.
But the year 1846, and tfie first half of 1847,
produced events in Switzerland which ma
terially altered the second discussion as com
pared with the first. Revolutions took place
in Berne and Geneva; a revision of the con
stitution in Bale- Ville; and the attainment
of an electoral majority in the Great Council
of St. Gallen.
The revolution of Berne, properly speaking,
was only partially connected with Federal
politics, and would not have been much
spoken of in connexion with them, if it had
not happened to raise to the Presidency so
marked a man as Colonel Ochsenbein, the pre
vious commanderof the Corps Francs. For in
truth, the Government of M. Neuhaus, which
Colonel Ochsenbein supplanted, was just as
much "Radical and Anti- Jesuit, and would
have been, if it had lasted, just as much

LETTER VI. 131
against the Sonderbund, as himself: and it
is one among many proofs of the loose use of
names as applied to Swiss political parties,
that M. Neuhaus is spoken of in 1845 as
the leader of all the Radicals, and in 1846,
though his politics had not at all altered, as
a Conservative, merely because he stood
opposed to Colonel Ochsenbein. After the
repulse of the Corps Francs from Lucerne on
the 1st April, 1845, the Government of M.
Neuhaus, which had before connived at them,
thought it necessary to make demonstrations
against them, and to take some steps calcu
lated to prevent any repetition of the at
tempt. In this they were certainly right,
whatever censure they may deserve for their
previous connivance: moreover, it may be
remarked, that in the state of widespread
excitement which preceded the 1st of April,
their interference would probably have been
of little effect, had they really applied them
selves to the task ; whereas, in that state of
depression which succeeded the repulse, there
remained only a provoked minority anxious

132 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
for farther action, and that minority was not
too large for the Government to control.
The anger and vexation which pervaded a
large mass of the people after the defeat of
the Corps Francs was pretty sure to vent
itself upon some one; and the Government
of M. Neuhaus, disavowing and beginning to
repress what it was known to have previously
connived at, became the object of discontent
with a considerable party which took Colonel
Ochsenbein for its leader.
The opposition against the Government of
M. Neuhaus thus doubtless began in causes
connected with Federal politics : but it was
enabled to succeed by agencies of a totally
different character. It collected together all
the financial malcontents and embarrassed
interests from the different parts of the
Canton, promising some special Government
intervention to meet the particular case of
each. The proprietors of land in the com
munes of the Bernese Oberland were dis
tressed and surcharged with mortgages at
high interest : to them was promised an ad-

LETTER VI. 133
vance of 5,000,000 francs from the funds of
the Government at an interest of 5 per cent,
1J of which was to be laid by as a sinking-
fund for repayment of the principal. This was
to be ultimately enlarged into a general
caisse hypothecaire for the whole Canton.
Next, the communes of the Emmenthal were
borne down by the weight of pauperism : to
them was offered an enactment relieving
each separate commune from legal liability
to maintain its own poor, and making that
charge public or Cantonal — at the same time
consolidating the poor-funds of all the sepa
rate communes into one aggregate Cantonal
poor-fund, whereby the richer communes
would have borne a large part of the charges
of the less affluent.
Such was the scheme as originally pro
jected, though not carried into full effect:
its tendencies appeared so dangerous that it
met with the most strenuous opposition in
passing through the constituent assembly,
and was ultimately modified so as to leave to
every commune its own poor-fund apart, but

134 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
at the same time to alter for the future the
principle of poor-law relief from compulsory
to spontaneous, and to abolish the legal claim
of a poor person on his commune. This
latter change is recognised in principle, and
is to be gradually approached in practice:
over and above the amount of the poor-fund,
(which of course remains consecrated to its
original purpose,) the amount of compulsory
rates hitherto levied upon the different com
munes is to be gradually diminished, until at
length, after the lapse of four years, no far
ther recourse is to be had except to volun
tary collection. To smooth this transition,
and to aid the distressed communes, the
Cantonal treasury is to furnish to each com
mune assistance proportioned to the amount
of its rates : but the aggregate charge thus
arising on the Cantonal treasury is not to
exceed in any case the maximum of 400,000
Swiss francs, (about 600,000 French francs,
or 24,000£ sterling: the population of the
Canton is at present about 430,000 souls).
It will be seen, that in the poor-law thus

LETTER VI. 135
modified, the change first projected, or
Cantonal aid to the pauperised communes,
was retained in principle, but much con
tracted in extent ; while the new provision
of abolishing compulsory poor-rates was in
troduced. Lastly, a third financial operation, besides
what related to mortgages and pauperism,
was included in this same party move. The
communes of the Seeland and other parts of
the Canton were subject to various burdens
of immemorial antiquity — tithes, rent-charges,
&c, old feudal redevauces attaching to the
different districts, and which had passed into
the hands of the Cantonal Government when
it first conquered or purchased the seigneurial
rights, and under which of course the land
had often changed proprietors. These bur
dens had always been odious, from their
association with the ideas and feelings of
feudal superiority ; after 1798, the Helvetic
Republic then framed had tried partly to
abolish, partly to commute them : but this
was found impracticable, and they were ulti-

136 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
mately rendered redeemable at a rate which
the Government of M. Neuhaus in 1845
had reduced from eighteen to twelve years'
purchase. His opponents promised a still
further reduction to six years' purchase ; and
inasmuch as by such a step those who had
already redeemed at the higher rate would
be placed in a worse condition, an indemnity
was insured to them out of the public trea
sury, equal to the difference between the
higher and the lower rate. This operation
has since been carried into effect; and its
result has been, that the Government has
had to pay out in the way of indemnity
(partly to private impropriators of tithe,
partly to those who had before redeemed at
the higher rate,) a greater positive amount
than all which it received of principal money
from redemption on the reduced scale. It
thus not only ceases to receive for the future
a certain tithe-revenue, but has incurred a
positive loss.
The defalcation arising in the public
revenue out of these various operations, is to

LETTER VI. 137
be made up by imposing a direct property-
tax upon the entire Canton, excepting only
those Catholic portions which formerly con
stituted the Bishopric of Basle, and which
are subject already to an impot foncier of
fixed amount. The property-tax — a painful
novelty to the Bernese — has been distinctly
announced in perspective, but not yet ac
tually levied : it is to be hoped that the
actual collection of it, which is now become
indispensable to cover a large deficiency in
the public revenue, will not prove too un
popular to be carried into effect.
Such were the various financial combina
tions whereby the party of M. Ochsen
bein gathered together sufficient support
to displace M. Neuhaus, procure a con
stituent assembly, and frame a new constitu
tion. In that constitution the new financial
changes stand embodied, though in point of
fact they have no proper right of admission
into an act of political constitution : they are
all serious matters of legislation, proper to
be considered and settled by the elective

138 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Councils whicli that constitution may pro
vide : they threaten, moreover, to embarrass
greatly the future state of the revenue. The
new constitution, politically speaking, is an
improvement, since it substitutes direct elec
tion of the Great Council in place of election
by two stages: but this would hardly have
been sufficient of itself to displace the former
Government, which might well have adopted
such a change if recommended by popular
feeling. Considered with reference to Federal
politics, the revolution of Berne in 1846 is
of no great moment : considered with refer
ence to internal affairs, to the stability of
public property, and to the precedent afforded
of acquiring partisans by helping embarrassed
debtors out of the public purse, it is one of
the most unpromising which as yet occur
red in Switzerland. It was accomplished
merely by popular meetings and demonstra
tions, without the use of arms on either side:
M. Neuhaus was displaced during the winter,
the Constituent Assembly held its sittings
through the spring, and the constitution was

LETTER VI. 139
published and ratified by the popular vote in
July 1846.
On all these points the Revolution which
occurred at Geneva on the 7th of October,
1846, was materially different. It was of
great Federal importance : it was purely
political, a triumph of Radicals over Con
servatives, without any appeal to pecuniary
interests : moreover, it involved a serious
armed contest. The proximate cause of it
was, the debate and decision in the Great
Council respecting instructions to be given
to the deputation at the Diet in reference to
the Sonderbund and the Jesuits. I have
already mentioned, that when the former
question was discussed at the Diet on the
4th September, 1846, the Deputy of Geneva
reserved his vote ; and in the beginning of
October, the Executive Council of Geneva
proposed to the Great Council a draft of
instructions for his future conduct.
After 1814, the year of liberation from
France, the government of Geneva became
representative in principle, yet with a re-

140 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
stricted suffrage and little responsibily to the
people. Though confined to the hands of the
old Genevese families in the Upper Town,
however, it was administered with liberality
and intelligence, and formed in this respect
an honourable contrast to the retrograde and
reactionary spirit which animated nearly all
the Swiss Governments between 1815 and
1830. Hence, the vehement burst of popular
feeling which traversed Switzerland after
1830, remained for a long time without
much effect on Geneva; nor was it until
1841 that a movement at length broke out
which that Government was unable to resist:
a new constitution was then framed, with
suffrage substantially universal, and with the
voters distributed into ten electoral colleges.
The practical working of this system was,
to transfer the real power from the Upper
Town to a combination of the Upper and
Lower Town, and to throw the Radicals of
St. Gervais into a minority. The politics of
Geneva have been not a little influenced by
its topography : the Rhone divides the town

LETTER VI. 141
into two unequal parts — the larger part on
the left bank containing the Haute and Basse
Ville, while the smaller part on the right
bank forms the district called St. Gervais.
The Haute Ville or Upper Town contains the
Hotel de Ville, the public buildings, and the
residences of the old families or aristocracy
of Geneva — men wealthy and prudent as a
class, socially as well as politically exclusive,
and proud in the recollections of the ancient
town when it figured during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries as a refuge for per
secuted Protestantism, and when its pro
fessors and clergy, enjoying European cele
brity, added some dignity to a government
essentially narrow and repulsive. The Basse
Ville contains the bourgeois of various occu
pations, merchants, tradesmen. &c, who are
separated from the aristocracy of the Haute
Ville by a social line not the less felt and
observed because it is nowhere traced on the
map. On the opposite side of the river, in
St. Gervais, dwell the artisans and operatives,
with smaller tradesmen among them : a class

142 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
industrious and energetic, as well as intel
ligent — of independent spirit — strongly at
tached to theories of Democracy and social
equality, and hating priestly dominion not
less than political privileges — moreover,
though last not least, every man among them
more or less a soldier, possessing his rifle and
familiar with the use of it. The movement
of 1841 had been one in which the Basse
Ville joined with St. Gervais to abrogate the
privileges of the Haute Ville : but when the
new constitution was formed and put in
working, the result of it was found to be,
that the Haute and Basse Ville, combined
together against St. Gervais — aristocracy and
bourgeois against the Radicals. The newly-
allied parties seem to have acted under a per
suasion that universal suffrage was in itself
dangerous and full of bad tendencies which
it was their duty to neutralize ; and for
this purpose they constituted themselves a
government of resistance. Their principal
supporters formed themselves into secret so
cieties, both in the Great Council and out of

LETTER VI. 143
it, which were made to act powerfully upon
the elections as well as upon legislative pro
ceedings: and so strongly did the tide of
party organisation set among these Con
servatives, that whoever among their own
number declined to join some one of these
societies, was looked upon coldly and un
favourably. The effect of such organisation
was of course sensibly felt, and the existence
of the societies as a general fact well known
by the Radical leaders. M. James Fazy in
the Great Council,' and others, commented
upon them severely under the usual title of
"les embrigades." To the Radicals, more
over, the symptoms of aristocratical pre
tension in the newly admitted members of
Government from the Basse Ville — who had
united with them to bring about the movement
of 184 1 , and who but for that movement would
not have been accounted worthy to occupy
the chairs of the Executive Council — were
more galling than those same dispositions
would have proved in the members of the
old families whom they had been so long

144 FOLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
accustomed to see in the' seats of power.
The Genevese Government between 1841
and 1346 was thus in its political spirit a go
vernment of resistance as well as of party ;
though its administration then, as well as
before 1841, gave little ground for complaint.
It commanded a large majority in the Great
Council; but it had the considerable and
compact minority of Radicals in St. Gervais
in strong opposition — on one occasion, indeed,
in 1843, in actual revolt, which was only put
down by force. M. James Fazy was the leading
Radical representative in the Great Council.
Upon this state of dissentient parties fell
the passionate course of Swiss Federal poli
tics during the interval betwen 1841 and
1846. The Radicals of Geneva sympathised
strongly with the feeling against the Jesuits,
and still more strongly with that against
the Sonderbund in 1846. On the first of
these questions, the Government of Geneva,
while refusing to concur in any vote for
expelling the Jesuits out of other Cantons, as
a matter beyond their competence, always

LETTER VI. 145
expressed their strong opinion that the Jesuits
were noxious to the peace of the country,
and invited other Cantons to dismiss them
voluntarily. This reserve did not suit the
views of the Radicals ; nevertheless, on the
question of the Jesuits, the Government ob
tained large majorities and an easy triumph.
With the question of the Sonderbund their
course might have been even easier, since
there was really less difference of opinion :
but it was rendered unnecessarily difficult,
and became ultimately even critical and
perilous, from the political feelings with which
the Government approached it in October
1846, in proposing the instructions for their
Deputies at the future Diet. There were
two points to be determined ; first, whether
the Sonderbund should be declared illegal ;
next, what security should be provided against
renewal of the Corps Francs, which the
Cantons of the Sonderbund set forth as one
of their main justifications for the formation
of the separate league. Now on neither
of these points does there seem to have
H

146 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
been any substantial difference of opinion
between the Government and the Radicals
— both agreed that the Sonderbund was
contrary to the Pact, and both agreed that
the Corps Francs ought to be repressed. But
though there was little difference of opinion,
there was an immense difference of feeling
between the two parties : the Government
did not approve the Sonderbund, but it
cordially detested the Corps Francs and the
vein of feeling in which they had originated ;
while the Radicals on their part did not
approve the Corps Francs, and were nowise
unwilling to concur in prohibiting them,
but their positive hatred was directed against
the Sonderbund and its originating sentiment.
Now the Government, even though consenting
to declare the Sonderbund illegal, were most
afraid of appearing to give a triumph to Radical
principles : accordingly, they proposed to in
struct the Deputy, while pronouncing the
illegality of the League, to couple his vote
with such strict conditions respecting the
Corps Francs as would probably not have

LETTER VI. 147
been realized, so that he would have been pre
vented from forming one of a majority against
the Sonderbund. Moreover, M. Demole, the
first Syndic of Geneva, one of the most vehe
ment Anti-Radical speakers in Switzerland,
would probably have gone to the Diet with
these instructions, and would have given all
the right of the case, and all the weight of the
Cantonal authority, to the Lucerne side of
politics, even while pronouncing that Canton
to have gone further than the Pact justified,
in forming the Sonderbund. The instructions
thus proposed by the Government, repugnant
in the extreme to the Radical minority, were
Anti-Radical to so impolitic a degree as -even
to offend many of their own partisans in
Council ; several of whom supported an
amendment, moved by one of their number,
(M. Senn,) which was a certain approximation
towards the Radical view, and as such was
supported also by M. Fazy and his friends,
though rejected by the Government. Ulti
mately the original instructions were carried,
but by a majority much smaller than the
h2

148 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Government were in the habit of obtaining.
Moreover, there were other points in these
instructions which provoked the displeasure
of the Radicals, such as the proposition made
to appoint Federal Representatives in restraint
upon the recently formed Radical Government
of Berne, when that Canton should become
Vorort on the 1st of January, 1847. Such a
power is given to the Cantons in the Pact,
but has never yet been actually exercised ;
and the mere proposition of it was a party
move indicating a dislike of Radicalism,
which the Radicals on their side were not
backward in repaying.
As soon as the instructions had passed the
Council, vehement manifestations of dis
content broke out in St. Gervais : meetings
were held ; and M. Fazy with others pro
claimed an indignant protest, to be addressed
to the Vorort, against the resolution taken
by the Council. This was regarded as a
decided act of illegality by the Govern
ment, who thought it their duty to arrest
M. Fazy. He refused to obey ; and the

LETTER VI. 149
Radicals of St. Gervais, full of sympathy for
him as well as indignation against the course
of political affairs, rose in insurrection to de
fend him : while the Government, trying to
overpower them by military force and by
cannonade, found itself worsted in the at
tempt and obliged to abdicate. For all
ordinary purposes it was doubtless strong
enough, but not for such an act^f force as
the arrest of the popular leader under the
existing state of feeling. No one, however,
seems to have been prepared, certainly not
M. Fazy himself, for the spontaneous burst
as well as the obstinate determination mani
fested by the Radicals. When once political
dispute passes from words to arms, new forces
which before slumbered are found to awake,
while those which were before in evidence
fall short of their apparent promise, in a way
which renders calculation of the result ex
tremely difficult, and throws much to the
score of accident.
The strong and unmixed political charac
ter of this revolution — the courage manifested

150 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
by the men of St. Gervais — and the absence
of reactionary lawlessness after success — ren
dered it a most impressive event throughout
Switzerland ; and its future influence upon
Swiss affairs will be the greater, inasmuch as
it has elevated M. Fazy, known before only
as an able Opposition speaker and journalist,
to a post wherein he has been enabled to
display powers of positive government and
organisation for which few had given him
credit. In the constitution as now changed,
the elective franchise remains nearly the
same in extent, having been before practically
universal ; but it has been distributed anew ;
the aggregate of about 12,000 voters is now
divided into three electoral colleges, instead
of ten, while the number of members in the
Great Council has been diminished by one
half. On both these points the previous
arrangement was highly favourable to the
influence of the Genevese aristocracy, who
have thus by the present change lost an
underhand advantage adroitly infused into
universal suffrage by the constitution of

LETTER VI. 151
1841. In all times of political quiet, a
wealthy aristocracy like that of Geneva
will be able to sway more or less the
fair expression of electoral opinion, even
under the present or any other system :
but they cannot reasonably expect that the
constitution should be so framed as to help
them in the work. The most questionable,
change introduced by the new constitution
appears to be the election of the Executive
Council by the aggregate body of Cantonal
electors, instead of by the Great Council, as
is the practice in the other Swiss Cantons.
But we may remark, in regard to the
Genevese constitution of 1847, what was
already observed about the new constitution
of 1845 in the canton of Vaud — that it does
not bring about^ any capital transfer of the
seat of power : it is a change from universal
suffrage, partially hampered and laid open to
corrupt influence, to universal suffrage more
free and spontaneous. But the 12,000
electors continue now, as before 1846, to
constitute the political sovereign ; and the

152 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
large majority now possessed by the Radicals
in the Great Council is probably more owing
to the strorlg temporary stimulus of the revo
lution itself, than to any inherent difference
between the working of the present and the
former systems of election. Whether that
large majority will be durable, depends much
on the conduct of the Radical Government ;
but under all circumstances it may well be
considered doubtful.
Bale- Ville has always been inflexibly Con
servative down to the beginning of the
present year, in sympathy with Lucerne and
its allied Cantons. The rich mercantile aris
tocracy of Basle forms in many respects a
parallel to that of Geneva, and the minds of
its population were strongly affected by the
revolution in the latter. At the beginning
of the year 1847, political discontent being
on the increase in Basle, the Government
were prudent enough to take warning by the
occurrences in Geneva, and to determine on
a revision of their constitution, which is
supposed to have averted the chance of a

LETTER VI. 153
revolution. Since that revision, the Federal
politics of Bale-Ville have assumed a neutral
or a juste-milieu character ; neither support
ing the Sonderbund nor voting with the
majority. The vote of St. Gallen, at the Diet of the
present year, was determined by the elections
of last May for the Great Council of the
Canton. Previous to last May, the Great
Council was divided into two parties equal
in number, so that at the Diet of 1846, the
Canton gave no vote on the questions of the
Jesuits or the Sonderbund. In May last, the
elections for the Catholic district of G asters
returned new men, of the Liberal or Radical
party ; and this gave a majority, though a
small majority, to that party in the Great
Council. St. Gallen is a Canton of parity,
divided between Catholics and Protestants,
with equal political rights to each confession :
the population is about three-fifths Catholic
and two-fifths Protestant, not inhabiting con
tinuous districts, but Catholic and Protestant
communes intermingled one with another.
H 3

154 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
There exists moreover in this Canton what
is called the Confessional Separation, — a
distinct organisation of both confessions, apart
from and to a great degree independent of
the Government, for the management of all
that relates to religion, education, matrimony,
and a range of other matters connected with
these general heads. There is a Catholic
Council of Administration, elected by the
general body of Catholics, and a Catholic
Executive Board, chosen by that Council :
and as the fund belonging to the confession
is ample, this board is well paid, exercises
great influence, and is almost a match for
the Government itself. Moreover, a Bishop
for the Canton exclusively has recently been
named, and endowed, together with several
Canons, out of a remaining portion of the
property belonging to the old Abbots of
St. Gallen. The Catholic religious leaders
in that Canton have thus received a rein
forcement which will make their organisation
even more effective than it has hitherto been
in correspondence with Lucerne, and may

LETTER VI. 155
probably enable them to break down the
present narrow majority. The knowledge of
this fact is of course familiar to the Govern
ment of Lucerne ; who have even been led
to doubt whether the Great Council of St.
Gallen, with so small a majority, would go
so far as to sanction measures of execution
against the Sonderbund : this explains in
part the language of inflexible determination
and defiance which they have maintained.
The two votes of Geneva and St. Gallen,
added to the ten and two half- votes of 1 846,
constitute the majority against the Sonder
bund and the Jesuits in the Diet of the
present year. Bale-Ville, which was before
favourable to the League, is now in a position
of neutrality.
I have now followed down the course of
Swiss Federal politics from their causes in the
past to their present condition. One letter
more — 'containing some general remarks on
these past facts, and on the probable tenden
cies of the future, in so far as they admit of
being dimly discerned — will close the series.

156

Letter VII.
Oct. 16, 1847.
We trace a distinct though complicated
sequence of events, one growing out of another,
from the politico-religious movements prior to
1840 down to the present Diet and its votes
respecting the Sonderbund. It is impossible
even to comprehend, still less fairly to appre
ciate, the feelings and position of Switzer
land at present, without going back to these
previous circumstances. If the Sonderbund
is to be characterised as an effect resulting
from the expeditions of the Corps Francs,
these expeditions resulted even more directly
from the peculiar train of events which pre
ceded them in 1843 and 1844. And it has
been the more necessary to go briefly over
these, because the actual condition of Switzer
land is usually presented in a totally erro
neous point of view — as resulting from the
systematic efforts of the party called Radical to

LETTER VII. 157
merge the Cantonal sovereignty in a unitary
government, and to oppress the Catholic re
ligion. The invasions of the Corps Francs
— the real wrong for which the Radicals
of four Cantons adjacent to Lucerne are
responsible — had their rise in neither of
these dispositions. It seems, indeed, strange
that the Radicals should be so often charged
with preference for a unitary government,
since Radicalism, as such, could not possibly
gain, and would in all probability lose, by
the change ; for it is certain that govern
ment has less weight as a substantive force
apart from the people, and that the dema
gogic influences are more perpetually opera
tive, in the separate Cantons, than they
would be in the case of one concentrated
system pervading all Switzerland. If any
one reads M. Tillier's valuable History of
the Helvetic Republic down to the Act of
Mediation in 1803 — a time during which
the comparative fitness of the unitary and
Cantonal systems of government was really
under serious deliberation, which it never has

158 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
been since — he will see that one of the ob
jections urged by opponents of the Cantonal
system was, that it opened so many easy and
tempting markets for demagogic speculation.
Some particular Radical leaders might gain
in importance by a unitary government ; but
the greater number of them would be per
sonally losers — to say nothing of the feeling
common to the population of every Canton,
which puts all idea of unitary government
out of the question. Nor is the alleged
hostility towards the Catholic religion on the
part of Radicals at all better founded.
Hostility to the Jesuits is not hostility to
the Catholic religion : still less was the act
of suppressing the Argovian convents a proof
of this latter feeling ; for the real persons
who have gained by that suppression are the
Catholic ministers, Catholic schoolmasters,
and Catholic parishioners of the Canton;
while the means of inculcating the Catholic
faith and duties are unquestionably strength
ened and not weakened. The monks of
Muri did not employ their property for any

LETTER VII. 159
such purpose ; though they were ready
enough to assist politico-religious agitation,
either in their own Canton or in others.
The series of facts set forth in the pre
ceding letters, sufficiently shews that the
two parties in the Federal quarrel are not
distinguished from each other by systematic
respect or disrespect for Cantonal inde
pendence. On the two matters of con
tention which have stood out most prominent
— the suppression of the Argovian convents
and the maintenance of the Jesuits — the
position of the two parties in respect to
Cantonal rights has been reversed. On the
first of the two, the Radicals were the up
holders of Cantonal sovereignty, which was
then held very cheap by Lucerne and its
allies; while on the second, Lucerne has
pushed its separate rights to their extreme
limits, (as may be seen from the language
addressed to that Canton by the Conservative
Cantonal Governments, nowise unfriendly to
Lucerne,) against the Anti-Jesuit feeling
enforcing- a wide construction of the Pact.

160 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
If Lucerne in 1842-43 had been able to
obtain a majority in the Diet for the un
conditional restitution of the Argovian con
vents, and had Argau refused to obey, the
Cantons now forming the Sonderbund would
have marched out their entire military force
to execute it, at any cost of bloodshed: they
would have left to Radicals all the talk
about sanctity of Cantonal rights. It suits
their policy now to take stand upon un
restrained Cantonal omnipotence ; but when
we put 1843 and 1847 together, we may
see plainly that this forms no fixed line of
distinction between the two parties.
That which runs through the Federal
quarrels during the last seven or eight years
is, not so much the disputed competence of
Canton against Diet, as the struggle for
ascendancy between the Catholic church and
the political power. The success of the
Catholic priestly agitators in the revision of
the Lucerne constitution in 1840 — their at
tempt, even by force, to accomplish a similar
change in Soleure and Argau — the subsequent

LETTER VII. 161
events connected with the Argovian convents,
the Valais, and the Jesuits — all these are
under one form or another the continuation
of the struggle above mentioned, brought into
prominent relief by the action of Lucerne
both as Canton and as Vorort. That Canton
has put itself at the head of the Catholic
Clerocracy (if we may venture to add one to
this already numerous family of compound
words) of Switzerland, working through
Democratical forms, and adopting the Jesuits
as the most effective of all trainers for a
political priesthood ; while on the other hand
the party called Radical, including both Ca
tholics and Protestants, throughout Switzer
land, have been brought together by com
mon antipathy to this movement — of which
antipathy the great and perfectly natural
manifestation has been, the protest against
the introduction of Jesuits into Lucerne.
We here discover the real pivot of Swiss
Federal dissensions during the last few years ;
dissensions which have divided the country
into two hostile camps, and have given to

162 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
the proceedings of the Diet a positive and
central character foreign to its habitual nega
tion and impotence. Of course each Canton
has had its own local parties aud grounds of
dissension, and with these the Federal politics
have blended, often in predominant propor
tion. In Zurich, in Vaud, and in Geneva,
the then existing Conservative Governments
were placed in a false position, — anti-Jesuit
in theory and pro-Jesuit in vote, — which dis
tinctly caused the overthrow of the two
former, and mainly aided in that of the
latter. Allowing for such separate Cantonal
individualities, it is not the less true that the
general cast of Swiss parties is as follows.
1. The Clerocraey of Lucerne, working for
the promotion of Catholic priestly ascendancy
throughout Switzerland — ultra Democratical
in constitutional forms, and leaning upon the
veto or referendum as a means of nullifying
the lay representative council. 2. The Radi
cals of both confessions — bound together
chiefly, if not entirely, by a strong common
antipathy to what may be termed the Lucerne

LETTER VII. 163
policy. 3. The Conservatives, principally
Protestants, distinct from both — adverse to
the Radicals, (who form their own immediate
opponents,) and thrown by this circumstance
into a sympathy with Lucerne, which does
not always proceed from coincidence of
views — now generally in opposition, except
in Neufchatel and partially in Bale-Ville,
having been elsewhere elbowed out by the
stronger contentions between the two other
parties. The conduct of Lucerne has indeed
been such as to do much unintentional ser
vice to the Radicals its opponents, arid much
mischief to the Conservatives its supporters.
Such is the manner in which the con
tending parties now,, stand opposed in
Switzerland : the main antithesis is that
between lay-power and priest -power, each
working through Democratical forms — the
same line of parties, substantially, as that
which now divides Belgium ; whilst the power
ful organisation of the Catholic church, per
vading as it does so large a portion of the
country, and applied as it has been system-

164 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
atically to convert political questions into
religious, is in truth a much stronger re
straint on Cantonal sovereignty than the
feeble powers exercised by the Diet. The
purely political question, between privilege
on the one side and the sovereignty of the
people on the other, is one of subordinate
moment in Switzerland. The former creed
is not found convenient to proclaim anywhere
as a party formula, even by those who regret
the times anterior to 1830 : either the
Landsgemeinde, or universal suffrage with
or without direct expression of the popular
voice in veto or referendum, prevails every
where ; and the competition lies between
the priest and the magistrate, which of the
two shall influence that voice, or in what
proportions it shall be divided between them.
Throughout the Cantons of the Sonderbund,
and amidst much of the Catholic population
in the other Cantons, the larger share of
such influence is in the hands of the priest :
in the Protestant Cantons, the sphere of the
latter is much more limited, in spite of a

LETTER VII. 165
frequent disposition to extend it by direct
political preaching. The difference between
popular government under Catholic priestly
ascendancy and under lay ascendancy, is
strikingly manifested in the fact, that in the
Cantons of the Sonderbund there is at this
moment no free expression of opinion on the
part of the minority : not only is the Can
tonal press under restraint, but even Liberal
newspapers, published in other Cantons, are
systematically refused admittance ; while in
the Radical Cantons, the Opposition press
is as out-spoken as in any part of Europe,
and every one who chooses to denounce the
Government or uphold the Sonderbund is at
liberty to do so.
The preceding observations on the general
cast of Swiss parties are not calculated to
lighten our conception of the political dilemma
in which that country is now placed. On the
contrary, they bring to view forcibly the points
of repugnance between one part of the Con
federation and another, and the difficulty of
maintaining that degree of harmony which

166 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
is absolutely essential to the idea of a common
"Vaterland," recognised in words in the
Federal Pact. The two hostile camps into
which -the country is now divided, and the
tone of discussion hence arising, go to deprive
this impressive German word not only of all
hold upon the feelings but of all import and
reality in argument.
If we assent to the claims and to the reason
ing set up on behalf of the Sonderbund, we
should be driven to pronounce the Pact
entirely at an end — we should be driven to
affirm that the majority of the Confederation '
have no right in any case whatever to bind
the minority. The right of the Diet to con
demn that League cannot be denied, except
upon arguments which go to deny it in all
and every case. It would be clear, even upon
general reasoning simply, that the most essen
tial purposes of the Pact would be frustrated
if armed leagues among the separate Cantons
were allowed to subsist. But this is a matter
not left to inference ; for the sixth Article of
the Pact (already alluded to) expressly says —

LETTER VII. 167
" No alliance prejudicial either to the general
Confederacy or to the rights of other Cantons
shall be formed by separate Cantons among
themselves." Commentators on the Pact, such
as Professor Stettler of Berne, (not a Radical
writer,) distinctly read this clause as consti
tuting the Sonderbund Anti-Federal; and it is
hardly possible to construe it otherwise. The
Sonderbund do indeed contend — "Our League
is necessary for self-defence ; it is formed ex
clusively for purposes of defence, and is there
fore not prejudicial either to the Confederacy
or to any other Canton : of this we ourselves, as
sovereign Cantons, are the only competent
judges, and we deny the competence of the
majority of the Diet to determine it for us."
Here the point at issue is distinctly raised,
"Have the majority of the Diet competence to
determine whether a particular league formed
comes under the general description of league
forbidden by the Pact?" In other words," Have
they the right to apply the general provisions
of the Pact to a particular case? Or has
every separate Canton a right to determine

168 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
this for itself?" To concede this latter point,
would be to extinguish altogether the prac
tical obligation of the Pact. Commentators
upon the Pact always reason upon it as an
instrument according to which each Canton
has voluntarily renounced a certain definite
portion of its independent sovereignty, and
in which the majority of the Diet have a
right judicially to construe its provisions and
apply them to particular cases, but no right
to enlarge or modify them ; such judicial de
cision being binding on the minority. Unless
we grant this, the whole business of voting
at the Diet, and of distinguishing between
Cantons of half vote and Cantons of whole
vote, would be an absurdity: indeed, the
Sonderbund themselves grant it, in cases
where they are the parties complaining and
not the parties to be bound. Not to mention
the efforts of Lucerne to procure a majority
for the purpose of enforcing restitution of the
Argovian convents — efforts which of course
imply that the majority had a right to over
rule the step taken by Argau, and to dictate

LETTER VII. 169
an authoritative construction of the Pact —
during the past session of the Diet, and at the
very time when the Sonderbund formally re
fused to obey its resolution, the Deputy of
Friburg preferred complaints to it against the
Government of Vaud, for having laid undue
taxes upon the properties in that Canton belong
ing to the Abbey of St. Bernard. The case was
one much less clear, in respect to contraven
tion of the Pact, than the very existence of
the Sonderbund itself: but whether clear or
not, the Deputy of Vaud would have had a
ready answer, if he in his turn had denied
the competence of the majority to construe
the Pact judicially, and had claimed for his
Canton the right of separate and independent
interpretation. To deny the right of judicial construction
in the majority when it goes against you,
and to invoke it when it makes in your
favour, is an inconsistency not at all likely to
be tolerated. And the more we look at the
resistance of the Sonderbund to the Diet,
combined with the arguments whereby it is
i

170 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
defended, the more we shall be satisfied that
it amounts to nothing less than a suspension
of the Pact in practice as well as in theory.
If a French or an Austrian army were at
this moment to cross the frontier, it is cer
tain that they would meet with no unanimous
resistance, even if they were not hailed as
positive allies, by the Cantons of the Sonder
bund. The continuance of that separate
armed League is plainly incompatible with
the continuance of the Pact as something
real, vital, and operative. Lucerne cannot be
Vorort of the Confederation, and at the
same time chief of a Catholic Sonderbund.
How the majority of the Diet will deal
with this grave and critical conjuncture —
how they will construe their Federal rights,
and what degree of firmness combined with
moderation they will shew in exercising them
— we shall see when they re-assemble on the
18th of this month. If we were to judge by
the recent manifestations on both sides, we
should conclude that the melancholy con
tingency of a civil war was all but inevitable.

LETTER VII. 171
Berne, Zurich, and Vaud, the three most
populous Cantons in the Confederation, have
placed themselves in a complete state of
military readiness; while the Landsgemeinden
in Schwytz, Uri, and Zug, have also passed
the strongest resolution of resisting force by
force ; and arms have been transmitted to
the Sonderbund both by France and Austria.
It will be seen after the 18th — first, whether
all the Cantons of the majority concur in
sanctioning measures of forcible execution,*
in case pacific tentatives fail ; next, whether
the population of all or most of those Can
tons heartily espouses the cause; thirdly,
what species of compromise they are disposed
to offer or accept, as a means of avoiding
war. On none of these points can we safely
venture to indulge predictions at present.
If the Cantons of the majority, with their
population, are all unanimous, and most of
* All the Cantons have now concurred: the de
cision of St. Gallen having recently become known.
(Oct. 24.) l2

172 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
them really earnest in the cause, there can
be no reasonable doubt (looking at the ques
tion merely as one of military superiority)
that they could take Lucerne and Friburg,
in the latter of which there is already a
discontented and compressed minority: the
principal force and agency of the Sonderbund
resides in these two Cantons. But this alone
will be very far from accomplishing what is
really desired — the renovation of a Pact
which has been practically set aside, and of
an extinct confederate brotherhood. The
population of the recusant Cantons, instead
of being conciliated, would probably be
still farther alienated: no man supposes
that they could be permanently constrained
by force, or hindered from renouncing the
Confederation, should such be their confirmed
wish ; and in such case the separation would
only become formal and avowed, without any
maintenance of the Pact even in name.
Mere superiority of force, assuming it to
be ever so complete, lands us only in this
untoward result.

LETTER VII. 173
We may, however, spare ourselves the
trouble of speculating at present on a subject
so melancholy as well as so perplexing ; for
a civil war would be sure to throw up con
tingencies such as no man can foresee — not
to mention the chance of foreign intervention
which opens the door to a host of new
mischiefs. The present majority of the Cantons has
on its hands a grave and responsible task.
They are are now in a state of positive and
intimate co-operation altogether unusual in
Switzerland, which it is deeply to be wished
that they may have the wisdom to preserve,
resisting that spirit of Cantonal egoism which
has hitherto constituted the chronic malady
of the country. They possess by far the larger
portion of the wealth, the intelligence, the
industry, and the population, of Switzerland :
all the progressive elements in the country,
and all its means of future permanent union,
reside with them. The Sonderbund may
break up the Confederation, but cannot
possibly guide or hold it together : all its

174 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
tendencies are those of discord and disintegra
tion — setting Cantonal individuality against
Confederate brotherhood, Protestant against
Catholic, one half of the Catholic world against
the other half, priest against layman, and the
dictation of religious preaching against the
liberty of political discussion. That M. Guizot
or Prince Metternich, who have every interest
in thedisunionof Switzerland, should patronize
the Sonderbund, is extremely intelligible :
that this sentiment should also be shared by
those who desire to see Swiss nationality
maintained,at least at such a pitch of efficiency
as will defend the integrity of the territory,
is more extraordinary, and has its source
probably in an undistinguishing aversion
to Radicalism. Even if, by some fortunate
compromise, the present quarrel were ap
peased, it would still be an indispensable con
dition of future unity that the Government
of Lucerne should desist from its Ultramon
tane and aggressive policy, and from acting
as the champion of the political aggrandize
ment of the Catholic Church throughout

LETTER VII. 175
Switzerland : if such policy were renewed,
the same antipathies and excitement would
again be roused throughout the Confederacy.
It deserves to be remarked, that the Diet
at its last meeting passed a peremptory reso
lution against the Sonderbund, but only a
modified resolution against the Jesuits — in
viting each Canton to dismiss them, but not
putting forth the language of command.
This, in point of fact, is no more than what
has been expressed as a wish even by the
Conservatives. We may perhaps infer from
such difference of language that the majority
of the Diet is not likely to be unanimous in
insisting upon the worst part of its case —
the expulsion of the Jesuits from Schwytz,
Friburg, and Valais. If this shall be pub
licly declared, it will be a material step to
wards narrowing the ground of contention,
and depriving the Sonderbund of its com
mon motive for resistance. And it seems
not wholly impossible that the present ex
cellent Pope might think the motive of
restoring peace in Switzerland sufficient to

176 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
warrant his interference, and might enjoin
the Jesuits to withdraw from Lucerne. In
the present excited state of the country,
however, with the party manoeuvres of an
active Opposition in each separate Canton,
and with the taunts thrown out against the
majority that they are afraid to execute their
own resolutions — no man can reckon on the
dispositions necessary to a moderate com
promise on both sides: not to mention the
chance of some accidental collision on the
borders of Friburg or Lucerne, which might
produce a state of ungovernable exasperation,
and destroy all chance of adjustment.
There is so much of all that constitutes
both the good man and the good citizen
distributed throughout Switzerland, that
the present dissensions which agitate that
country cannot but inspire a profound and
anxious interest. Industry, forethought, self-
supporting energy, and reciprocal disposi
tions to neighbourly help, pervade a larger
portion of the population than perhaps in
any other country of Europe. Of the spon-

LETTER VII. 177
taneous tendency to order which prevails
there with the minimum of police agency, a
striking proof is afforded by the fact that
there were no food riots in any part of the
country throughout the last winter and
spring, though the distress was of the severest
kind, the price of bread in some parts even
higher than in London, and the necessity for
extraordinary private aid unexampled. Of
none of the neighbouring countries can the
same thing be said : in France, Germany,
Italy, even in England, such riots were but
too notorious. Political revolutions have
undoubtedly been frequent in Switzerland :
but these revolutions have rarely been at
tended with any loss at all, either of life or
property; and never in any case, except
Lucerne and the Valais, have they produced
any harshness, or cruelty, or multiplied
exiles. Proprietary rights have never been
disturbed, and are especially protected by
the fact that property in land is widely
disseminated among the people. In most
of the Cantons, the Small or Executive

178 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
Council addresses every year to the Great
Council a report of its annual adminis
tration, and the series of these reports
forms a record of the internal government of
the Canton. If we follow that series for the
larger Cantons, such as Berne, Zurich, St.
Gallen, Soleure, &c, we trace proofs of an
improving and corrective administration, and
the greatest pains taken to turn limited
powers to the best account. In particular
we observe gradual and systematic ameliora
tion in the- management of the Communes,
resulting from increased activity of Cantonal
superintendence : the Commune is the unit
of Swiss social life, and its common funds as
well as its common obligations are of the
most essential importance to the comfort
of the citizen ; both the one and the other
have been subjected to good rules, and
rescued from neglect and jobbing, without
at all extinguishing the principle of distinct
Communal management. The two grand
items of expense which figure in the budget
of a Swiss Canton, are the roads and public

LETTER VII. 179
education : the sums which have been be
stowed on both these purposes since the
changes of 1831 have been immense, rela
tively to the total means of the Cantons.
The habit of borrowing money on the security
of Cantonal or Communal credit, has happily
obtained little footing in Switzerland: far
from being disposed to spare themselves by
throwing burdens on successors, the Swiss
think it necessary to get together and keep
together a capital which shall produce interest
a — school-fund or poor-fund — so that the
weight of annual taxation for the purpose
may be lightened : the actual generation thus
imposes burdens upon itself greater than
those which will be borne by the succeeding.
Elementary education is nearly universal ; and
in many Cantons, the public sentiment, even
among the poor population, sustains the prin
ciple of making it compulsory. The dark side
of the picture presents itself in increasing
pauperism, as in so many other countries of
Europe : the poor families multiply but too
fast, and a proletary population appears to be

180 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
augmenting in the manufacturing Cantons;
and this is unfortunately an evil which, when
once established, contains in itself a principle
of contagion spreading more and more. The
indirect taxes, from which a large proportion
of the Cantonal revenues are derived, have
tended everywhere to become more and
more productive ; but it seems that the
difficulties by which Swiss manufactures are
surrounded in respect of sale of their pro
ducts, by the restrictive systems of other
nations, are found almost insuperable even
by present capitalists, and are at least likely
to check further increase. In many of the
Cantons much has been done since 1830
to improve the security and facility of the
relation of lender and borrower on landed
security, by means of cheap and authentic
registration of mortgages and sales, and
in some cases even by a formal cadastre
of the territory. It is only since 1831
that any general habit of canvassing pub
lic affairs has obtained among the people :
before that period, neither the proceedings

LETTER VII. 181
of the Great Council nor even the Can
tonal budgets were in general published.
This new activity of public life, and strong
attachment to the theory as well as the prac
tice of popular government, has produced its
full crop of political dissension ; but it has at
the same time awakened a zeal for turning the
powers of government to profitable public
account, and a sensibility to the exposure of
wrong or abuse, which have already mani
fested themselves in a thousand beneficial
ways, and which present every chance of im
provement in the future.
The Cantons of the Sonderbund are in
every respect the stationary and backward
portions of the Confederacy. It would be
unjust and unreasonable to disturb their
population in a state of things suitable to
their feelings ; but there will be the deepest
reason for regret, if the preservation of that
which they cherish is found, through the
intrigues of their partisan Vorort, to break
up the union, arrest the progress, or endanger
the independence, of the larger and more im-

182 POLITICS OF SWITZERLAND.
proving Cantons. Whether such shall be
the case or not, the intelligence of the next
two or three months, so full of anxious anti
cipation, will reveal.

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