PREFACE.
This book is based upon notes of studies and observations during four years of diplomatic service in Switzerland, made, at the time, with eventual publication in view. There is no attempt to treat the subjects embraced, or rather touched upon, in any historical sequence, but, by brief hints and random suggestions, to seize the principal and interesting features of the country and its institutions, the people and their characteristics.
The comparative method correlated with cause or effect is used in the chapters on the government and administration, national and cantonal. Many familiar facts in Swiss history, and experiences had by the United States, are introduced to show their relation to and effect upon certain political ideas. In fact, all through the Swiss federal polity and that of the United States run not only parallels of illustration, but lines converging to and pointing out essential truths in popular government.
Dating from the “Eternal Covenant” of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, concluded in 1291, under all vicissitudes of government and constitution,—with radical varieties of character, occupation, religion, language, and descent,—love of liberty and a passionate devotion to the republic have characterized the people, with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the great objects of government, federal, cantonal, and communal. During this period of six hundred years the smallest free commonwealth and the oldest federal republic in the world presents a valuable stock of political experience.
It is very difficult for a stranger to discover all that is remarkable in any country, and perhaps as hard to treat of so many different subjects with such care as to omit nothing that is material. The utmost endeavor, at least, has been used to be exact, and an effort to give a more complete view of the modern state of the country than has yet appeared. There is no design in the “Introduction” to write even an historical outline; it is not necessary to the purpose of this work; but only to relate such general facts, as to its former state, as may serve to discover the causes which gave rise and birth to the present Confederation.
Where references to national and local laws or ordinances and leading historical events are necessary, partial repetition has been deemed preferable to directing the reader to previous citations.
As the Swiss, in different Cantons, speak different languages with several distinct idioms, there is necessarily a great diversity of nomenclature; the aim has been to follow that locally prevalent, and especially in the designation of the Cantons by their German, French, and Italian names.
The writer has had frequent recourse to the following authorities: “The Swiss Confederation,” by Sir Francis Adams and C. D. Cunningham, London; “The Federal Government of Switzerland,” by Bernard Moses, San Francisco (these two books are of recent date, supplementing each other well, and constitute the only systematic and valuable publication in English on the constitutional history and public law of Switzerland); Woolsey’s “Political Science,” Woodrow Wilson’s “The State,” Freeman’s “History of Federal Government,” May’s “Democracy in Europe,” “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Reclus’s “The Earth and its Inhabitants,” furnish briefer but valuable accounts. Elaborate works in German and French consulted are Bluntschli’s “Staats und Rechts Geschichte der Schweiz,” Dubs’s “Das öffentliche Recht der schweizerischen Eidgenossenchaft,” Droz’s “Instruction Civique,” and Magnenat’s “Abrégé de l’Histoire de la Suisse.”