is necessary to call to mind here is, that the Government of the United States exercises a power of taxation throughout the whole Union by means of its own officers, and enforces its decrees through the medium of its own Courts. A Supreme Court has also been established, which has power to adjudicate on the constitutionality of all laws passed by the Legislature of the United States, or of any State, and to decide on all international questions.
Switzerland was till 1848 an example of a confederate union or league of semi-independent States, which, unlike other confederacies, had existed with partial interruptions for centuries. This unusual vitality is attributed by Mill[62] to the circumstance that the confederate government felt its weakness so strongly that it hardly ever attempted to exercise any real authority. Its present government, finally settled in 1874, but based on fundamental laws passed in 1848, is a federal union formed on the pattern of the American Constitution. It consists of a federal assembly comprising two Chambers—the Upper Chamber composed of forty-four members chosen by the twenty-two cantons, two for each canton; the Lower consisting of 145 members chosen by direct election at the rate of one deputy for every 20,000 persons. The chief executive authority is deputed to a federal council consisting of seven members elected for three years by the federal assembly, and having at their head a president and vice-president, who are the first magistrates of the republic. There is also a federal tribunal, having similar functions to those of the supreme court of the United States of America, consisting of nine members elected for six years by the federal assembly.
The Empire of Germany is a federal union, differing from the United States and Switzerland in having an hereditary emperor as its head. It comprises twenty-six States, who have "formed an eternal union for the protection of
the realm, and the care of the welfare of the German people."[63] The King of Prussia, under the title of German Emperor, represents the empire in all its relations to foreign nations, and has the power of making peace and war, but if the war be more than a defensive war he must have the assent of the Upper House. The legislative body of the empire consists of two Houses—the Upper, called the Bundesrath, representing the several component States in different proportions according to their relative importance; the lower, the Reichstag, elected by the voters in 397 electoral districts, which are distributed amongst the constituent States in unequal numbers, regard being had to the population and circumstances of each State.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a federal union, differing alike in its origin and construction from the federal unions above mentioned. In the beginning Austria and Hungary were independent countries—Austria a despotism, Hungary a constitutional monarchy, with ancient laws and customs dating back to the foundation of the kingdom in 895. In the sixteenth century the supreme power in both countries—that is to say, the despotic monarchy in Austria and the constitutional monarchy in Hungary—became vested in the same person; as might have been anticipated, the union was not a happy one. If we dip into Heeren's Political System of Europe at intervals selected almost at random, the following notices will be found in relation to Austria and Hungary:—Between 1671 and 1700 "political unity in the Austrian monarchy was to have been enforced especially in the principal country (Hungary), for this was regarded as the sole method of establishing power; the consequence was an almost perpetual revolutionary state of affairs."[64] Again, in the next chapter, commenting on the period between 1740 and 1786: "Hungary, in fact the
chief, was treated like a conquered province; subjected to the most oppressive commercial restraints, it was regarded as a colony from which Austria exacted what she could for her own advantage. The injurious consequences of this internal discord are evident." Coming to modern times we find that oppression followed oppression with sickening monotony, and that at last the determination of Austria to stamp out the Constitution in Hungary gave rise to the insurrection of 1849, which Austria suppressed with the assistance of Russia, and as a penalty declared the Hungarian Constitution to be forfeited, and thereupon Hungary was incorporated with Austria, as Ireland was incorporated with Great Britain in 1800. Both events were the consequences of unsuccessful rebellions; but the junction which, in the case of Hungary, was enforced by the sword, was in Ireland more smoothly carried into effect by corruption. Hungary, sullen and discontented, waited for Austria's calamity as her opportunity, and it came after the battle of Sadowa. Austria had just emerged from a fearful conflict, and Count Beust[65] felt that unless some resolute effort was made to meet the views of the constitutional party in Hungary, the dismemberment of the empire must be the result. Now, what was the course he took? Was it a tightening of the bonds between Austria and Hungary? On the contrary, to maintain the unity of the empire he dissolved its union and restored to Hungary its ancient constitutional privileges. Austria and Hungary each had its own Parliament for local purposes. To manage the imperial concerns of peace and war, and the foreign relations, a controlling body, called the Delegations, was established, consisting of 120 members, of whom half represent and are chosen by the Legislature of Austria, and the other half by that of Hungary; the Upper House of each country returning twenty members, and the Lower House forty.[66] Ordinarily the delegates sit and vote
in two Chambers, but if they disagree the two branches must meet together and give their final vote without debate, which is binding on the whole empire.[67]
The question arises, What is the magnetic influence which induces communities of men to combine together in federal unions? Undoubtedly it is the feeling of nationality; and what is nationality? Mr. Mill says,[68] "a portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others; which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than other people; desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be a government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively." He then proceeds to state that the feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the identity of race and descent; community of language and community of religion greatly contribute to it; geographical limits are one of its causes; but the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents: the possession of a national history and consequent community of recollections—collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret—connected with the same incidents in the past.
The only point to be noted further in reference to the foregoing federal unions, is that the same feeling of nationality which, in the United States, Switzerland, and the German Empire, produced a closer legal bond of union, in the case of Austria-Hungary operated to dissolve the amalgamation formed in 1849 of the two States, and to produce a federal union of States in place of a single State.
One conclusion seems to follow irresistibly from any