190 THE SWISS REFORMATION.
In 1847 the civil war in Switzeiiand was renewed in a different shape and under different conditions. The same Forest Cantons which had combined against the Reformation and for the foreign pensions, and had appealed to the aid of Austria, formed a confederacy within the confederacy (^Sonderbund') against modern political liberalism, and again entered into an alliance with Austria; but at this time they were defeated by the federal troops under the wise leadership of General Dufour of Geneva, with very little bloodshed.^ In the year 1848 while the revolution raged in other countries, the Swiss Diet quickly remodelled the constitution, and transformed the loose confederacy of independent Cantons into a federal union, after the model of the United States, with a representation of the people (in the Natio7ialratli) and a central government, acting directly upon the people. The federal constitution of 1848 guaranteed "the free exercise of public worship to the recognized Confessions " (i.e. the Roman Catholic and Reformed) ; the Revised Constitution of 1874 extended this freedom, within the limits of morality and public safety, to all other denominations ; only the order of the Jesuits was excluded, for political reasons.
This liberty goes much further than Zwingli's plan, who would have excluded heretical sects. There are now, on the one hand, Protestant churches at Luzern, Baar, Brunnen, in the very heart of the Five Cantons (besides the numerous Anglican Episcopal, Scotch Presbyterian, and other services in all the Swiss summer resorts) ; and on the other hand, Roman Catholic churches in Zurich, Bern,
1 The Swiss Sonderbunds-Krieg was an anticipation, on a small scale, of the Civil War in the United States, though the causes were different. In both cases the confederates rebelled against the federal government, and sought the aid of their hereditary enemy ; the Swiss of the Catholic Forest Cantons that of Austria, the Americans of the slave-holding Southern States that of England. For a clear sketch of the Sonderhuids-Kriefj, see Vuillemin, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft (1882), pp. 517-537.
§ 48. REFLECTIONS ON THE DISASTER AT CAPPEL. 191
Basel, Geneva, where the mass was formerly rigidly prohibited.
As regards the foreign military service which had a tendency to denationalize the Swiss, Zwingli's theory has completely triumphed. The only relic of that service is the hundred Swiss guards, who, with their picturesque mediaeval uniform, guard the pope and the Vatican. They are mostly natives of the Five Forest Cantons.
Thus history explains and rectifies itself, and fulfils its
promises.
NOTES.
There is a striking correspondence between the constitution of the old Swiss Diet and the constitution of the old American Confederacy, as also between the modern Swiss constitution and that of the United States. The Swiss Diet seems to have furnished an example to the American Confederacy, and the Congress of the United States was a model to the Swiss Diet in 1848. The legislative power of Switzerland is vested in the Assembly of the Confederacy (^Bundesversammlimg) or Congress, wliich consists of the National Council (JVationalrath) or House of Representatives, elected by the people, — one out of twenty thousand, — and the Council of Cantons (Stdnderath) or Senate, composed of forty-four delegates of the twenty-two Cantons (two from each) and corresponding to the old Diet. The executive power is exercised by the Council of the Confederacy (^BundesratK) , which consists of seven members, and is elected every three years by the two branches of the legislature, one of them acting as President (^Bundesprasident) for the term of one year (while the President of the United States is chosen by the people for four years, and selects his own cabinet. Hence the head of the Swiss Confederacy has very little power for good or evil, and is scarcely known). To the Supreme Court of the United States corresponds the Bundesgericld, which consists of eleven judges elected by the legislature for three years, and decides controversies between the Cantons. Comp. Bluntschli's Geschichte des Schweizerischen Bundesrechts, 1875 ; Riittimann, Das nordamerihanische Bundesstaatsrecht verglichen mit den politischen Einrichtungen der Schweiz, Ziirich, 1867- 72, 2 vols. ; and Sir Francis 0. Adams and C. D. Cunningham, The Swiss Confederation, French translation with notes and additions by Henry G. Loumycr, and preface by L. Ruchonnet, Geneva, 1890.
The provisions of the Federal Constitution of Switzerland, May 29, 1874, in regard to religion, are as follows : —
Abschnitt I. Art. 49. " Die Glatibens- tind Geivissensfreilieit ist unverletzlich.
Niemand darf zur Theilnahme an einer Religionsgenossenschaft, oder an einem religiosen Unterricht, oder zur Vornuhme einer religiosen Handlung gezwungen, oder wegen Glaubensansichten mit Strafen irgend welcher Art belegt werden. . . .
Art. 50. Die freie Ausiihunq gottesdienstlicher Handlungen ist innerhulb der Schranken der Sittlichkeit und der offentlichen Ordnung gewahrleistet. . . .