The Landsgemeinde exercises two equally important functions. First, it elects the principal officers of the Canton, the Landammann and his substitute, the treasurer, and the chief of the cantonal militia; it also appoints the deputies for the Federal Assembly. These cantonal functionaries are paid but nominally; their duties are light, and the small claim which they make on the individual causes them to appear a universal duty of the citizen. It belongs to the Landsgemeinde to sanction all cantonal laws, and all treaties which are concluded with other Cantons or with foreign states. With the exception of Glarus, the legislative power is exercised in this sense, that it accepts or rejects as a whole the propositions which are made to it, without the power to introduce changes in them. In Glarus the constitution invests the Landsgemeinde with power to modify or reject the propositions which are made to it, or refer them to the triple council finally, either to report on them or to decide. The constitution of Glarus also contains this provision: “The people are responsible only to God and their consciences for the exercise of their sovereignty in the May Assembly. What must guide the May Assembly is not, however, caprice without limit and without condition; it is justice and the good of the state which are alone compatible with it. The people are obliged to vote according to these principles in taking annually the oath of the May Assembly.” In all of the Cantons, having these assemblies, the proposition to be submitted must be made public a certain time in advance. The administrative power is ordinarily confided to quite a numerous council, called Rath or Landrath. The functions of this body are extensive. It watches over the enforcement of the constitution, federal and cantonal; regulates in their general organization public instruction, financial, military, and sanitary administration, public works, charity, except the legal provisions regarding the province and obligations of inferior authorities; receives the reports of the administration of all the functionaries of the Canton; deliberates upon the proposed laws to be presented to the Landsgemeinde, through the intermediary of the triple council; and watches over the execution of what the laws or decrees of the Landsgemeinde prescribe to it. In Nidwald the council has, besides, judicial function. In Glarus, Uri, and Obwald there have been organized, side by side with the Landrath, special authorities to which have been transferred all the judicial functions formerly granted to the Landrath. About the Landrath are grouped various bodies, evidently formed from it by addition or reduction. The double and the triple or Great Council are nothing but the council of the Landrath itself, doubled or tripled by the addition of new members, whom the territorial divisions appoint in the same manner and in the same proportion as the first. In Glarus, for example, each local assembly (tagwen) adds two members to the one which it appoints to form a simple council. Thus the triple council is composed there of one hundred and seventeen members, as follows:
(1) Of the nine members of the Commission of State.
(2) Of thirty-five members appointed by the tagwen following fixed proportions.
(3) Of seventy members appointed by the same assemblies, following the same proportions.
(4) Finally, of three Catholic members, appointed by the same council, and of which one forms a part.[51]
The principal functions of the triple council are to watch over the council and the tribunal, to establish the project of the budget of receipts and expenditures, and to convoke the Landsgemeinde in extraordinary assembly. The process of addition is applied in many ways in Appenzell-interior; it is applied in particular to the little council, which is charged with the principal judicial powers. This body judges sometimes as a weekly council; it is then only a section of the little council; sometimes with a simple addition, again with the reinforced addition. Finally, with a last reinforcement, it forms what is called the council of blood (Blutrath). As there are councils formed by addition, so there are others formed by reduction, as, for example, the weekly council of Unterwald-lower. It is appointed by the Great Council (Landrath) and chosen from its body. It is the executive, administrative, and police authority, subordinated to the Great Council. It is composed of the Landammann, as President, and of twelve members appointed for two years. It assembles in ordinary session on Monday of each week, and in extraordinary session, when convoked by the President, and as often as there is need. The third and remaining authority in this pure democracy is the Commission of State. It is appointed by the Landsgemeinde, and replaces the council, for affairs of lesser importance. In Glarus this commission is divided into two sections, to expedite business. The first is composed of all the members of the commission; and the second, of three members, the President included, alternating among themselves after a manner of rotation, established by the commission. The first section (or the commission in pleno) is charged with the correspondence of foreign states, the federal authority, and the Confederate states; with giving preliminary advice upon questions referred to it, or even with deciding them by the council. The second section is charged with the ratification of deeds of sale and of wills, with decisions upon the prolongation of the terms for the liquidation of bankrupt estates, etc. The Commission of State of Appenzell-exterior has also the surveillance of the administration of the Communes. The Landammann presides over the Landsgemeinde, the double or triple council, the council or Landrath, and the Commission of State. He receives all the despatches addressed to the authorities presided over by him, and he is bound to make them known at the next session. He keeps the seal of state, signs and seals concordats and conventions. He watches over the execution of the decrees of the Landsgemeinde, the Councils, and the Commission of State, in so far as the execution is not intrusted to a special authority. The re-election of the Landammann is universal; and the office, though always filled by an annual selection, becomes almost hereditary in a single family.
Customs still exercise a considerable empire in these Cantons, and the Landsgemeinde makes but few laws; there is none of the confusion and uncertainty that come from a multiplicity of laws; a source to which was imputed a great part of the miseries suffered by the Romans at the time when “the laws grew to be innumerable in the worst and most corrupt state of things.”[52] The people of these Cantons fill the idea of Bacon, as to innovation, “to follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be perceived.” Changes in established institutions must be considered in reference to existing interests, habits, manners, and modes of thinking. In vain should we try to promote the common weal by introducing alterations, however well designed, which have no hold on the feelings of the people, or are at variance with them, or which shock their deeply-seated prejudices. There are two different considerations involved: the propriety of retaining institutions merely because they have been sanctioned by our ancestors, or transmitted to us through a series of ages; and the propriety of retaining them because they are strongly settled in the actual habits, tastes, and prejudices of the people. While it would argue extreme imbecility, to spare cumbrous or hurtful institutions on no better ground than the former, it is absolutely indispensable to pay a cautious regard to the latter. The existing habits, tastes, and prejudices of the community, equally with the universal properties of human nature, are material elements of the politician’s calculations. They are all sources of pleasure and pain, all springs of action which call, on his part, for tender handling and accurate appreciation. There is scarcely a question in the whole compass of politics on which there is a greater unanimity among philosophers and statesmen than there is on the policy of cautious and gradual, in opposition to rash and sudden, reforms on the one hand, and to a pertinacious retention of incongruities and abuses on the other. As to the improvements which are to be introduced into a political system, their quantity and their period must be determined by the degree of knowledge existing in any country, and the state of preparation of the public mind for the changes that are to be desired. A passage in the correspondence of Mr. Jefferson contains a highly instructive exposition of his opinion on this subject, expressed in his happiest manner: “I am certainly,” says he, “not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne, because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened; as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions changed with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.” It is well to stand fast in the old paths; but the old paths should be the paths of progress; to shrink from mere change for the sake of change; but fearlessly to change, whenever change is really needed. All mountain races love the past, and suspect new things. Their fundamental laws are few and slowly formed; as slowly formed as they are stoutly held. The constitutions of the Swiss Cantons were originally of the simplest forms of ancient democracy. The old democracy, whether absolute or modified in form, was always direct; modern democracy is, as a rule, representative. It is obvious that the former presupposes great simplicity of life and occupation, as in the small communities of mountain valleys; nothing could render it consistent with the public peace, but the simple habits of a people of shepherds and husbandmen among whom political dissensions do not prevail. This substitution of the many for the one or the few, of the totality of the community for a determinate portion of it, is an experiment perhaps of insuperable difficulty, except for very small states, and especially for agricultural or pastoral peoples. The Landsgemeinde is only able, at most, to announce the general opinion, to express its approval or its disapproval of a proposition already known; but altogether incapable of deliberating seriously on a projected law, or of solving the more complicated problems of politics. On a wider field and with a more complex society, no such polity would be possible. To a great nation with extended territories and large population, the application of the federal principle is necessary. Therefore in all but four Cantons of Switzerland this primitive type of government has passed away. That it contains the germs out of which every free constitution in the world has grown cannot be denied. A cognate influence, if well considered, will go far towards accounting for that prodigious resolution and success with which the ancient commonwealths maintained their national rights. The whole territories of the Athenian, Spartan, and Roman republics, were originally but a single province; and the whole strength of the province was concentrated in a single city, the embryo of their future greatness, the nucleus around which all their subsequent acquisitions were formed. Within the sacred walls of Rome and Athens, all classes of citizens assembled like one great united family; they lived, they consulted, they transacted business together, and together repaired for public debate or religious devotion, for manly amusement, or philosophical speculation, to the forum or the temple, the circus or the portico. Virtuous emulation was roused, the force of public opinion increased, and the importance of the individual in the general scale visibly exalted. The Landsgemeinde is self-government in its noblest reach and simplest form, where every man is legislator, judge, and executive. What rare simplicity! No wrangling after power, no intrigue after place, no lust for fame; one thought alone, to live just as their fathers did, in perfect liberty, and fearing none but God. These simple democracies in the Cantons of Switzerland, which have existed for a thousand years, little touched by the stream of European life, deserve our respect for their long history that is rich in many episodes, and for the peaceful and happy existence of their people. They furnish us with a bit of realistic political education, a successful working example of the purest democracy in the world. It throbs with a vital sense of government at first hands; every citizen a very live political entity, and the sense of government very individual. Obstinately conservative, with a profound disbelief in theory, they remind one of the ox, which walks straightforward with a slow, heavy, and firm tread. They take no stock in the fallacy, that a new system, political or social, can be ordered like a new suit of clothes, and would as soon think of ordering a new suit of flesh and skin. With sincere satisfaction and pride, they are given to exclaim, “Thanks to our sublime resistance to innovations; thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers:”
“So have old customs there, from sire to son,
Been handed down unchanging and unchanged;
Nor will they brook to swerve or turn aside