FEDCHENKO, ALEXIS PAVLOVICH (1844-1873), Russian naturalist and traveller, well known for his explorations in central Asia, was born at Irkutsk, in Siberia, on the 7th of February 1844; and, after attending the gymnasium of his native town, proceeded to the university of Moscow, for the study more especially of zoology and geology. In 1868 he travelled through Turkestan, the district of the lower Syr-Darya and Samarkand; and shortly after his return he set out for Khokand, where he visited a large portion of territory till then unknown. Soon after his return to Europe he perished on Mont Blanc while engaged in an exploring tour in Switzerland, on the 15th of September 1873.
Accounts of the explorations and discoveries of Fedchenko have been published by the Russian government,—his Journeys in Turkestan in 1874, In the Khanat of Khokand in 1875, and Botanical Discoveries in 1876. See Petermann’s Mittheilungen (1872-1874).
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (Lat. foedus, a league), a form of government of which the essential principle is that there is a union of two or more states under one central body for certain permanent common objects. In the most perfect form of federation the states agree to delegate to a supreme federal government certain powers or functions inherent in themselves in their sovereign or separate capacity, and the federal government, in turn, in the exercise of those specific powers acts directly, not only on the communities making up the federation, but on each individual citizen. So far as concerns the residue of powers unallotted to the central or federal authority, the separate states retain unimpaired their individual sovereignty, and the citizens of a federation consequently owe a double allegiance, one to the state, and the other to the federal government. They live under two sets of laws, the laws of the state and the laws of the federal government (J. Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, ii. 490). The word “confederation,” as distinct from “federation” has been sometimes, though not universally, used to distinguish from such a federal state (Bundesstaat) a mere union of states (Staatenbund) for mutual aid, and the promotion of interests common to all (see [Confederation]).
The history of federal government practically begins with Greece. This, however, is due to the fact that the Greek federations are the only ones of which we have any detailed information. The obvious importance, especially to scattered villages or tribes, of systematic joint action in the face of a common danger makes it reasonable to infer that federation in its elementary forms was a widespread device. This view is strengthened by what we can gather of the conditions obtaining in such districts as Aetolia, Acarnania and Samnium, as in modern times among primitive peoples and tribes. The relatively detailed information which we possess concerning the federal governments of Greece makes it necessary to pay special attention to them.
In ancient Greece the most striking tendency of political development was the maintenance of separate city states, each striving for absolute autonomy, though all spoke practically the same language and shared to some extent in the same traditions, interests and dangers. This centrifugal tendency is most marked in the cases of the more important states, Athens, Sparta, Argos, Corinth, but Greek history is full of examples of small states deliberately sacrificing what must have been obvious commercial advantage for the sake of a precarious autonomy. Such examples as existed of even semi-federal union were very loose in structure, and the selfishness of the component units was the predominant feature. Thus the Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnese was not really a federation except in the broadest sense. The states did, it is true, meet occasionally for discussion, but their relation, which had no real existence save in cases of immediate common danger, was really that between a paramount leader and unwilling and suspicious allies. The Athenian empire again was a thinly disguised autocracy. The synod (see [Delian League]) of the “allies” soon degenerated into a mere form; of comprehensive united policy there was none, at all events after the League had achieved its original purpose of expelling the Persians from Europe.
None the less it is possible, even in the early days of political development in Greece, to find some traces of a tendency towards united action. Thus the unions of individual villages, known as synoecisms, such as took place in Attica and Elis in early times were partly of a federal character: they resulted in the establishment of a common administration, and no doubt in some degree of commercial and military unity. On the other hand, it is likely that these unions lacked the characteristic of federation in that the units could hardly be described as having any sovereign power: at the most they had some municipal autonomy as in the case of the Cleisthenic demes. The union was rather national than federal. Again the Amphictyonic unions had one of the characteristic elements of federation, namely that they were free sovereign states combining for a particular purpose with an elaborate system of representation (see [Amphictyony]). But these unions, at all events in historic times, were mainly concerned with religion, and the authority of the councils did not seriously affect the autonomy of the individual states.
Thus among the city-states as well as among scattered villages the principle of cohesion was not unknown. On the other hand the golden mean between an easily dissoluble relationship, more like an alliance than a federation, and a national system resulting from synoecism was practically never attained in early Greek history. There are, however, examples in Greece proper, and one, Lycia in Asia Minor, of real federal unions. The chief Greek federations were those of Thessaly, Boeotia, Acarnania, Olynthus, Arcadia, Aetolia, Achaea, the most important as well as the most complete in respect of organization being the Aetolian League and the Achaean League.
1. The Thessalian League originated in the deliberate choice by village aristocracies of a single monarch who belonged from time to time to several of the so-called Heracleid families. Soon after the Persian War this monarchy (dynasty of the Aleuadae, Herod, v. 63 and vii. 6) disappeared, and in 424 we find Athens in alliance with a sort of democratic federal council representing τὸ κοινὸν Θετταλῶν (cf. Thuc. i. 102, ii. 22, iv. 78), and probably composed of delegates from the towns. The local feudal nobles, however, seem to have put an end to this government by council, and a dictator (tagus) was appointed, with authority over the whole military force of the federation. Three such officers, Lycophron, Jason and Alexander, all of Pherae, endeavoured vainly to administer the collective affairs of the federation, the last by means of a revived republican council. The final failure of this scheme coincided with the disappearance of Thessaly as a sovereign state (see [Thessaly]).
2. The form and the history of the Boeotian federation are treated fully under Boeotia (q.v.). It may probably have originated in religious associations, but the guiding power throughout was the imperial policy of Thebes, especially during its short-lived supremacy after 379 B.C.