[15] These words, it may be remarked, are from the same root, ligo, to bind.
[16] Agreements to furnish soldiers to foreign countries.
[17] There are many provisions regulating the rights of citizens and electors, Cantonal and Communal, which are given in Chapters 6 and 9, and “Chapter on Citizenship.”
[18] It reads in the French text, “From his natural judge,” the natural or constitutional judge being the one provided by the terms of the judicial Constitution, and as contradistinguished from an exceptional Court created after the appearance of the case to be adjudged.
[19] See amendment of December, 1887.
[20] See amendment of June, 1879.
[21] Homeless persons, Heimathlosen. These comprise not only foreigners who have lost their nationality of origin without having obtained another, but also natives who are not members of any Swiss Commune.
[22] The Constitutional provisions relating to these are fully given in chapters severally devoted to these Departments.
[23] The Constitution is officially published in Romansch and Ladin, in addition to the three “national languages.”
[24] That the Constitution-making and amending power should be vested in a bare majority of the voting citizens, coupled with a majority of the Cantons, is considered by some as wanting in that solidity and security which are the most vital attributes of a fundamental law. But none of the enactments contained in the Swiss Constitution can be legally abolished or modified without the employment of the Referendum. And no law which revises the Constitution, either wholly or in part, can come into force until it has been regularly submitted by means of the Referendum to the vote of the people, and has been approved by a majority of the citizens who on the particular occasion gave their votes, and also by a majority of the Cantons. It is also provided, that under certain circumstances a vote of the people shall be taken not only on the question, whether a particular amendment or revision approved by the Federal Assembly shall or shall not come into force, but also on the preliminary question whether any revision or reform of the Constitution shall take place at all. And the Referendum in all such cases, in the language of the Constitution, is “obligatory.” The self-imposed checks of the Constitution of the United States, in this respect of amendment, have been described as “obstacles in the way of the people’s whims, not of their wills.” The system of the Initiative for the Swiss constitutional revision (by 50,000 citizens), though modelled upon one of the alternative methods by which amendments to the United States Constitution may be proposed, contains one significant modification of it; the people in the former appear in their national character and independent of state lines; the same holds true of the ratification of amendments.