Old Swiss Confederacy

“ This great victory gained by the Swiss not only widened and established more firmly the career of military glory commenced at Morgarten, but it gave to the Confederation independence, and far greater military and political eminence. What Platæa had been of old to the Greeks, that Sempach was to the Swiss; it struck a deadly blow against an ancient and relentless foe. Austria, her rule on this side of the Rhine thus rudely shaken, was compelled to waive all rights of supremacy over the Confederation. ”

“ Considering the internal condition of the Confederation, we may well ask what it was that saved the little republic from complete destruction in the terrible storm of the reaction which swept over Europe, if it was not the very strength of the Federal union, and the common possession of the different Swiss bailiwicks, which bound the parts so strongly together, and which triumphed over both party feelings and private interests. Thanks to the moderation of the Protestants, war was avoided, and the country settled into a state of comparative repose. ”

“ It is like a confederacy of reformers arising in the republic of the Sworn-Confederacy, each one with his peculiar physiognomy and different influence. There are Wittenbach, Zwingli, Capito, Heller, Œcolampadius, Oswald, Myconius, Leo Juda, Farel, Calvin, in Geneva, Zürich, Berne, Neufchatel, Glarus, Basle, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Appenzell, Gall, Graubünden.
In the German reformation there is one chief man, and one place of honor; in Switzerland the new life divides itself according to the thousand mountains. Every valley has its awakening, every Alpine height its clearing away of cloud. ”

“ It was also during the winter of 1802-3, that Switzerland took arms against the unitarian constitution which had been imposed upon her. Singular mania of the French revolutionists to compel all countries to adopt a political organization similar to that of France! There are, doubtless, principles common to all countries, such as those which secure the civil and political rights of free people; but of what consequence is it whether there should be a limited monarchy, as in England, or a federal republic, like the United States, or the Thirteen Swiss Cantons? ”

“ Jacques is a second Swiss Thermopylæ, and sheds immortal honour on the combatants. Though beaten the Confederates were not dishonoured. Like the brave Spartans under Leonidas they preferred death to servitude and dishonour. This battle was also the turning-point of the federal war; it rendered the Confederates more pliant. And though desultory feuds still showed themselves, peace was at last concluded, in 1450, by which Zurich was forced to give up her Austrian alliance. The federal league was knit more closely together than ever before ”

“ The Swiss struggled onwards through the conflicts of political development, and battled against all that was a hindrance to them in the constitution of 1815, the Powers looking on with misgiving if not with dismay the while not understanding the signs of the times. Yet, by 1848, when the thrones of Europe were again shaken by revolutions, Switzerland had gained that for which it had been struggling, and had settled down into a peaceful and regenerated Bundestaat. We have shown how the settlement of 1815 was in many ways a return to old lines in both Church and State. ”

“ Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the greatest statesman of the age.
On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the Swiss treasuries. ”

“ To stand apart in Europe is the very essence of life for Switzerland. It is regrettable therefore that German money and German propaganda and some sympathy for Germany among the officers of the army should have touched the fine flower of Swiss neutrality. A triumphant Prussia and a free Switzerland cannot exist in the same Europe. ”

“ This deed of blood saved Switzerland from the vengeance which the emperor had designed. The mountaineers were given time to cement the government they had so hastily formed, and which was to last for centuries thereafter, despite the efforts of ambitious potentates to reduce the Swiss once more to subjection and rob them of the liberty they so dearly loved. ”

“ Switzerland is menaced with a war on the part of the German Powers, for the purpose of recovering for Prussia the Canton of Neufchatel. It is stated that the Confederation will shortly march an army to the Swiss frontier: they have been restrained, up to the present time, by the fear of exposing themselves to revolution at home. ”

“ The Emperor acknowledged the ancient rights and the conquests of the Confederates, and granted to them, moreover, the ordinary jurisdiction over Thurgau, which, with the criminal jurisdiction and other sovereign rights, had, until then, belonged to the city of Constance. Thenceforward the emperors thought no more of dissolving the Confederacy, or of incorporating it with the German empire. In the fields of Frastenz, of Malserhaide, and Dornach were laid the first foundation-stones of Swiss independence of foreign power. ”

“ In the same spirit wrote the Council of Bern, “A handful of Swiss is a match for an army; on our own soil, with our mountains behind us, we can defy the world.” The Helvetic Confederacy made the greatest and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the fifteenth century; but Switzerland is no longer defended by natural frontiers; its two great cities, that of Geneva on the one side, and Basel upon the other, lie open to the invader, and the occupation of two or three points upon its railway system (which but for its army could be easily reached) would paralyze its defence ”

“ Yet the nationhood of Switzerland is the most integral and unified in Europe to-day, because Switzerland is as complete and thorough a democracy as exists in the civilized world, and the efficacious safeguard of nationhood is democracy not only of individuals but of nationalities. The German, French and Italian citizens of the Swiss Republic are to-day under arms to defend the neutrality of their nation from possible violation by German, French or Italian belligerents, and in defending their nation, they are defending also the autonomy of each other's nationality. ”

“ Mindful of their former independence,181 and weary of tyranny and extortion, the principal citizens of the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald met, seventeen days after Rudolf’s death, and on the 1st of August, 1291, took a solemn oath to stand by each other and resist all foreign intervention, until they had recovered their former freedom. This oath—the corner-stone of the Swiss Confederation—was duly sworn by all the principal inhabitants, among which figure men whose names are noted in legend as well as in history. ”

“ Seldom, if ever, has Switzerland seen a more eventful month than that of July, 1386, for in that month she fought and won the ever-memorable battle of Sempach. To set down all the petty details as to the causes which led to this engagement would be tedious indeed. It is sufficient to point out—what is but a truism—that there is seldom much love lost between oppressor and oppressed, and Austria and the Swiss Confederation had for some time held that relation to each other. ”

“ Some of the most glorious victories recorded in history have been gained by the little Swiss nation in defence of their beloved fatherland; the fame of Morgarten, Sempach, Grandson, and Morat is not likely to die out while European civilization lasts. Constitutionally the history of Switzerland is of surpassing interest. Step by step we have seen a handful of gallant people free themselves from oppression by emperor or duke, by prince or lord, by prelate or cloister. Inch by inch the people at large have gained their political rights from foreign overlords or from native aristocracies. ”

“ But lest the nobles should at [340] any time forget, a very good hint is given in a German inscription in the arsenal, implying, That the insolence and rapacity of high rank had brought about the liberty of Switzerland.
A people who have always arms in their hands, and form the only military force of the country, are in no danger of being oppressed and irritated with taxes.
It has been considered by some as a pernicious policy in the Swiss, to allow so many of their inhabitants to serve as mercenaries in the different armies of Europe. ”

“ Thus the Confederates once more helped him against the Emperor and Pope and against Milan, and the King concluded a friendly alliance with them in 1521. During many years they shed their blood for him on the battle-fields of Italy, without good result, without advantage, except that the Confederacy stood godmother to his new-born son. Each canton sent to Paris, for the fête, a deputy with a baptismal present of fifty ducats. More agreeable to the King than this present was the promptitude with which the Swiss sent sixteen thousand of their troops to his assistance in Italy. ”

“ The history of French Switzerland has not yet been touched upon, and that for good reasons. It is difficult to realize that down even to the sixteenth century the French Swiss were still languishing under the ancient forms of feudalism, and this at a time when their German brethren had long been enjoying the blessings of national independence, and had filled the world with their military renown. But, in truth, the French were slow to awaken to republican freedom, and looked to East Switzerland rather than to themselves for deliverance from political bondage. ”

“ What a pity Judge Douglas does not live in Switzerland, the oldest Republic now extant. Those benighted people, the Swiss, have been for centuries indulging in the foolish delusion that they were free, and that they had a Federal system of government. Why, there is no slavery in Switzerland—there is not the necessary variety of institutions there. Their States are all free States. There is uniformity there. How can they have Federal institutions with uniformity? How can there be liberty without variety? Impossible. Poor, innocent souls! they think they are free, and have no slaves! ”

“ According as he was hired, he intrigued in Switzerland, sometimes for the King of France, sometimes against France for the Pope, who, in payment, even made him cardinal and ambassador to the Confederacy.
The mercenary wars of the Swiss upon foreign battle-fields were not wars for liberty or for honor; but these hirelings of princes maintained their reputation for valor even there. With the aid of several thousand Confederates, the King of France subjected the whole of Lombardy in the space of twenty days. ”

“ To any one contemplating the enviable position and the natural advantages of Switzerland, and still more to any one looking at the fundamental character of the Swiss people, it would seem one of the most difficult political problems to find any cause for internal quarrel and disunion, much less for civil war. ”

“ It is plainly not a nation by blood or by speech. It can hardly be called a nation by adoption. For, if we choose to say that the three elements have all agreed to adopt one another as brethren, yet it has been adoption without assimilation. Yet surely the Swiss Confederation is a nation. It is not a a mere power, in which various nations are brought together, whether willingly or unwillingly, under a common ruler, but without any further tie of union. For all political purposes, the Swiss Confederation is a nation, a nation capable of as strong and true national feeling as any other nation. ”

“ The points to be borne in mind are that the Swiss Confederation is simply one of many German Leagues, which was more lasting and became more closely united than other German Leagues—that it gradually split off from the German Kingdom—that in the course of this process, the League and its members obtained a large body of Italian and Burgundian allies and subjects —lastly, that these allies and subjects have in modern times been joined into one Federal body with the original German Confederates. ”

“ Since those times of prowess the young republic had been growing into a prosperous and powerful nation, not without its influence on continental military affairs. Admired, envied, and feared, by turns, its friendship was greatly appreciated, and it lent protection to all who sought it. So strong was its love of warfare, that it was at all times ready to avenge any wrong or fancied wrong done to itself or its friends. Thus, Zurich, in 1456, laid waste the lands of the Austrian knight-robbers who had plundered some Strasburg merchants on a Swiss round. ”

“ The Swiss seem in a great measure to have lost their renown for patriotism, by their slavish submissions to foreign yokes during the late war, and by the apathy with which they allow their rights to be trampled on at this day by a tyrannical aristocracy at home. ”

“ In Switzerland republican institutions can claim to have been fairly tried and thoroughly succeeded. Dating from the perpetual Alliance of 1291, the Confederation now counts six centuries; living through many forms of government, feudal, clerical, imperial, radical, the League of Cantons never ceased to be a union of republics, and is the only federal government which has come down from mediæval times to our own day. We see that the Swiss have lasted well, “for utility is their bond and not respects.” ”