In many of the cantons these demands were met by a ready alacrity not only to urge their execution in their full extent but even to improve on them by subjecting discussion of domestic as well as of foreign affairs to strict surveillance. On the other hand, in more enlightened parts of the confederacy, it was thought that public discussion and the old right of sanctuary should be guarded from every species of encroachment. The diets continued to busy themselves with deliberations on both subjects. Returning tranquillity diminished the uneasiness of the cabinets; and, by consequence their inquisitive and minute attention to Switzerland. Individuals lost the importance which had formerly been ascribed to them, and the sojourn of strangers in Switzerland again became freer. The press occasioned more prolonged discussions at the diets and in several of the councils; but in the midst of these it obtained more and more freedom, and in some districts shook off all its former restrictions.
During these years an interest in church affairs diffused itself amongst laymen, as well as amongst theologians by profession. In the educated classes religious indifferentism became less frequent; while the genuine spirit of tolerance made progress. This tendency, like every other widely extended mental movement, had its questionable as well as its pleasing features. Shocking ebullitions of fanaticism are reported to have taken place in Zurich, Bern, and other cantons. A footing was gained in Fribourg and the Valais by the revived order of Jesuits; and the friends of human improvement could not regard without anxiety their influence in ecclesiastical matters and in education.[b]
REACTION AND REFORM; EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION OF JULY
The reaction making itself manifest throughout Europe in the third decade of the nineteenth century appeared also in the individual cantons of Switzerland and in its general government. The same disparity between the rights of the nobility and those of the people which existed in northern Germany was to be found here. As we have seen, the cantons for the most part had an aristocratic government in which a few favoured families, the patricians, had so decided a preponderance that there was hardly a shadow of representation of the people. As at an earlier period in other countries there had been a distinction between Stadt and Amt (city and subject land), so at this time in Switzerland the same distinction was still made between Stadt and Landschaft (city and rural district). The citizens belonging to the latter were permitted to send but a few members to the “great council” of a canton.
With such privileges in the hands of the patrician families the administration of the state was as bad as possible. Offices were apportioned more according to birth than merit, the finances were not always managed in the interests of the state. The evils of the administration of justice had become proverbial. Federal laws for the regulation of domestic intercourse and commerce were not thought of. The diet which met at one of the three leading places (Vororte)—Bern, Zurich, and Lucerne—did not fall behind the German diet in reactionary sentiment, adhered closely to the system of Metternich and sent its men as mercenaries to France and Naples that it might provide appointments as officers for the young patricians.
[1830-1832 A.D.]
The younger generation, such as was growing up at the universities and elsewhere, would not content itself with such republics. Everywhere the opposition of the liberals was becoming active against the rule of the oligarchies. Since the uprisings in northern Germany, especially, the demand for constitutional reforms became still more general. Societies were formed and the liberal press did not tire in proclaiming the principles of the new era; political equality, abolition of all privileges, equal representation for all the citizens of a canton, freedom of the press, etc. Bern, at that time the chief place (Vorort, capital), whose government was the most aristocratic of all, September 22nd, 1830, sent a circular letter to the governments of the cantons urging them to proceed against the press and to hold fast to the old constitutions. This only fanned the flame. In the months of October and November assemblies of the notables and of the people were held in almost all the cantons, the principles of new constitutions were determined upon, and in a few weeks the governments were forced to accept them.
Place de la Palud, Lausanne
Already before the revolution of July, in May, 1830, the oligarchal-ultramontane government in Ticino was overthrown and a different one erected on a democratic basis. The new constitution was accepted by the people in March, 1831. Events took a similar course in Zurich, where it was chiefly a matter of the relation of the rural districts (Landschaft) to the too powerful city; in Aargau, St. Gall, Lucerne, Solothurn, Fribourg—where the hierarchical aristocracy, supported by the Jesuits and congregationalists (Congregisten) who had been driven out of France, mustered out soldiers but was overthrown together with everything belonging to it; in Vaud—where, acting with the hot-bloodedness of Frenchmen, the people called out to the great councillors (Gross-räthe) of Lausanne, “Down with the tyrants!” and established a radical constitution; in Schaffhausen and in Bern—where the deposed government for a time had the mad plan to maintain itself by help of the discharged Swiss soldiers of Charles X; in Bâle—where bloody encounters twice occurred, and where for the adjustment of the quarrel federal troops had to take station, the great council of the city consented rather to a separation from the rural districts than conform to their demands. Thus there were formed here in 1832 the two half-cantons, Bâle (city) and rural Bâle (with its government at Siestal). Similar desires for separation also showed themselves in Schwyz and Valais, but they were laid aside after embittered conflicts. On the other hand, the old constitution remained in force in Uri, Unterwalden, Zug, Geneva, Glarus, the Grisons, and Appenzell. In Neuchâtel the liberal party would no longer recognise the king of Prussia as the sovereign, but was suppressed in 1831 by the energy of the Prussian general Von Pfuel; and the movement ended in a victory for the existing government.