The constitution of each Canton was purely democratic; the supreme power was vested in the people at large; all males of fourteen years old in Uri, of fifteen in Schwyz and Unterwalden, having a voice. Though deputies were chosen to represent the people in the Council of Regency, and a Landammann, or chief magistrate,[4] was also appointed, yet the supreme power was exercised by a general assembly held in the open air. In 1332 Luzern joined the three Cantons, and thus arose the federation of the Four Forest Cantons, Vierwaldstätten. Zurich came in in 1351, Zug and Glarus in 1352, and Bern in 1353. These eight Cantons continued until 1481, or a hundred and twenty-eight years, without increasing their number, and are distinguished by the name of the Eight Old Cantons. For a long time these Cantons possessed many distinctive privileges. This league upheld its independence in 1386 against Duke Leopold III., of Austria, in the battle of Sempach, when the most heroic courage was shown. This resulted in the decree of Sempach, whereby the eight Cantons agreed to preserve peace among themselves; to uphold each other; and in war to unite their banners against the common enemy. The last remnant of ancient Helvetic territories in Aargau was wrested in 1417 from Frederic, Count of Tyrol. Though still comprehended within the nominal sovereignty of the empire, encroachments upon their territory or their political liberties were no longer dreaded. They were henceforth free from external control and from contributions imposed by the Germanic Diet. In 1444 followed the defeat of the Dauphin Louis of France at St. Jacob, and the defeat of the Burgundians at Morat and Nancy in 1477. In 1481 Solothurn and Freiburg were admitted. The Cantons then bound themselves under a treaty effected at Stantz, Canton of Unterwalden, in December of that year, to two additional articles:
1. That all the Cantons oblige themselves to succor one another in the support of the form of government then established in each of them.[5]
2. That a body of military laws therein referred to should be received throughout the whole nation, and the observation of them enjoined.
The Emperor Maximilian I. determined to force the Swiss to join the Suabian League; hence resulted the Suabian war, which was concluded after the Swiss had gained six victories, by the peace of Basel in 1499. In 1501 Basel and Schaffhausen acceded to the league. In 1512, by the Milanese war, the Swiss obtained from Milan the territory which at present forms the Canton of Ticino. In 1515, after losing the battle of Marignano,[6] an advantageous peace was concluded with France, which was followed by the first formal alliance with that kingdom in 1521; and the two countries enjoyed an almost uninterrupted amity for nearly three hundred years.
Such was the political state of Switzerland in the beginning of the sixteenth century; it was an independent federal republic, renowned in war and distinguished for its ancient political institutions. In the Thirty Years’ War the Confederates maintained a prudent neutrality, and the Peace Congress of Münster in 1648, through the mediation of France, solemnly acknowledged the complete renunciation of Switzerland’s nominal allegiance to the German empire. From this time until the outbreak of the French Revolution, in 1789, the history of Switzerland presents few events of general importance. Appenzell had been united to the league in 1573, making the number of Cantons thirteen. The thirteen Cantons took the name of Eidgenossen, a word signifying confederates, because they bound themselves together as comrades by oath. This endured without a further change of actual members until 1803. From the peace of Aarau, in 1712 (generally credited to 1718, since the Abbot of St. Gallen did not accede to it until six years after its agreement), down to 1798, the Cantons enjoyed the blessings of seventy-nine years of comparative quiet. The tranquillity enjoyed was favorable to the progress of commerce, agriculture, the arts, and sciences. The French Revolution, which disturbed the peace and unsettled the political institutions of every country in Europe, convulsed Switzerland with civil war and anarchy. In January, 1798, a French army entered Switzerland to assist the Pays de Vaud, which had declared its independence against the Bernese; Bern was taken and the Swiss Confederation converted into the “Helvetic Republic, one and indivisible.”
The Cantons of Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, and Appenzell declared that they would not accept the laws which had been forced upon them, and leagued together to resist. These refractory Cantons were overpowered and coerced, but so gallantly did they maintain their ground that the French general declared, “that every Swiss soldier fought like a Cæsar.” It was then ordained by the French that an oath of allegiance to the new government should be taken in every Canton. Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Zug refused obedience to this ordinance. It was forced upon them and upheld by a costly army, which practised intolerable exactions and haughty and insolent domination. Geneva at this time was annexed to France. Lavater styled this epoch “the first year of Swiss slavery.” The atrocities of the French invasion of Switzerland excited great indignation in Europe. All that tyranny the most oppressive, rapine the most insatiate, cruelty the most sanguinary, and lust the most unbridled, could inflict did that devoted country experience. The effect on the friends of freedom may be judged of from the following indignant lines of Coleridge, once an ardent supporter of the Revolution, in his “Ode to Freedom,” written in 1798:
“Forgive me, Freedom! oh, forgive those dreams;
I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,
From bleak Helvetia’s icy cavern sent;
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stain’d streams;