elements of their nationality should be abolished. Outside the city of Rome, it would be difficult to find a place where patriotism and religion are so thoroughly identified, as in these three primitive cantons. Their greatest patriots have been those who for their virtues are honored in their sacred temples, and the patron saints of their race have been the preceptors of their political laws. Whoever, then, attacks their civil institutions, appears to them a profane person, and he that reviles their religion as one who plots against their political liberties. And how, in effect, could the chapel of Morgarten battle-field be stript of its Catholic ornaments without destroying the monument of Schwytz's most classic ground? Or how could the vivid connection of the living race with the deeds of Tell and Werner Van Stauffach, be preserved if the pilgrimages to Burglen and Steinen, and to the other chapels erected to their memories, should be abolished? Schwytz in these new quarrels became the head of the cantons that remained Catholic, as Zurich did of the Protestant. This was the most fatal wound of all to the Swiss leagne. The cantons were no longer brethren. Henceforth they for a long time made war on one another, or patched up a hollow peace from a common fear of the surrounding powers. No new principle was introduced, but only the old ones were left to work out their various effects, till the breaking out of the French Revolution, when the year 1798 saw the total subjugation of Switzerland by a French invasion, and the temporary abolition of the constitutional confederacy. Down to this period the independent sovereignty of each canton was one of the principles most urgently enforced, and most explicitly guarantied. Indeed, it was a capital point of their cherished liberties. There were degrees in this sovereignty, however; for some of the smaller cantons, that had been admitted at a later date, were bound to obey the determination of the majority of the confederacy in matters of war or peace with all foreign powers. But in what related to the interior government of each canton, it was of the essence of a canton to be independent. Moreover, as regards the principal cantons, especially the old Waldstaaten and Lucerne, Zurich and Berne, even in case of foreign war, each canton could only be invited to take part, and had full liberty to refuse. The great vice of their system, hitherto, was the admission to their confederacy of states foreign to themselves in sentiments and in fundamental constitution, and as unequal in natural virtue as they were unlike in national character. But they had committed another fault, which, from this time forth, was to work them still greater evil. This was the permitting within their borders a class of persons who were not to coalesce with the citizens and become one people, but under a foreign name to gather in parties, contradistinguished, isolated from the inhabitants proper of the country. The true policy of Switzerland was certainly to prevent immigration. The territory of their jurisdiction was narrow in extent, and limited in productiveness. Moreover, they were a people who sufficed for themselves, and were not likely to be truly benefited by a mixture of foreign ingredients. Their measures for discouraging the advent of foreigners were therefore, in the given circumstances, wise. But when the strangers were permitted to settle in the country, to marry and to propagate their offspring, the arrangements of their laws should have provided for the incorporation of the race. * The Swiss cantons did not act on so discreet a principle. The foreigner that entered a canton, even if he were the citizen of another of the confederation, could never, nor his children from generation to generation, obtain the rights of an "inhabitant." He and his descendants still went by the name of the "homeless"-Heimathlosen-and posts of honor and even permanent possessions were denied them. Had they imposed no laws for the protection of their nationality, it is certain their institutions would have been abused, and their ears stunned with the confused *We here especially deprecate any captious misinterpretation of our honest sentiments. The principle enunciated in the text is, that when the true policy of a country is to encourage immigration, there thence arises a two-fold national duty: First, possible, the rights, privileges, and affections of the of extending in the speediest and most full manner nation to its new inhabitants, thus making them at home; and then, of discouraging and opposing all political organizations based upon foreign feelings, interests, or appellations. subject to their jurisdiction. Schwytz, which possessed at this time several distin ticularly active in urging the aristocratic cantons to a like course. She sent one of the greatest of her sons, Charles Reding, to Berne, to entreat that canton, which was the one first menaced by France, to listen to the reasonable demands of the people of Vaud, who had long claimed the right of sovereignty, but were still held in subjection to Berne. The Vaudois were now stimulated to insurrection by French emissaries, while the Republic of that nation was threatening and provoking Berne to give it an occasion of interfering. Berne acted like a cowardly miser, who hears a robber at the door, and instead of running to resist him on the threshold, crouches cravenly over his dear bags of gold, and suffers him to enter undisturbed. This canton had not the generosity to make the necessary sacrifices. quarrels of the German party, and the Italian party, and the French party; who would each have imported into the confed-guished statesmen and patriots, was pareration their own crude notions of republicanism, and then have fought among themselves as to their application, or the expect ed emoluments. Or, forsooth, some aspiring little demagogue of native birth would have duped a section of them to serve his own ends, and then have talked large about the rights and interests of "our adopted citizens." But the Swiss, unfortunately, in avoiding this, fell into the opposite error of oppression and extreme cruelty. Now that the events are passed, we might desire that they had guarded the virtuous mean, and while protecting like men their nationality, have extended the hand of kindness to the stranger, whenever it was wise to admit such on any terms to remain on their soil; and especially to provide for the children that should be born in their territory the honor and advantages of citizenship. It was in the aristocratical cantons, such as Berne and Zurich, that this state of things was worst, and this particularly since the sixteenth century; for since then illegitimate births, and changes in religion, with other similar grounds, have multiplied, and these are esteemed causes for outlawry in all its rigor. Only a few years ago a report made officially in the Swiss diet represented these unfortunates as wandering to the number of many thousands from place to place, in all the degradation and suffering of the Gipsy life. These by no means include the entire class of the Heimathlosen, but we see by it the degrading tendency of the system. When the wild cry of the first French Revolution echoed through Europe, with its "declaration of the rights of man," it could not be heard with indifference by a people like the Swiss. Berne, Zurich, and the aristocratic cantons generally, were the most disquieted, and the Heimathlosen and the people of the provinces that they held as dependencies gave them good reason for alarm. When the intentions of France to invade Switzerland and to revolutionize their government became manifest, the ancient Waldstaaten, Schwytz, Uri and Unterwalden, prepared themselves for the contest by removing every cause of discontentment from the people To defend such a people against the hosts of the French Republic proved a useless waste of energy. And after some ineffectual fighting the troops of the Waldstaaten became convinced that the people of the aristocratic cantons had neither the courage nor the patriotism to defend their country with their lives; and they therefore withdrew to the limits of their own cantons. We cannot stop to relate how much evil the national sentiment had suffered by this division of interest and want of union between the cantons. But the end of the tragedy is too affecting to be passed over in entire silence. The gallant Aloys Reding and about fifteen hundred men, nearly all of the canton of Schwytz, were awaiting the French on the already glorious Morgarten heights. The other cantons had all succumbed, but it was the desire of these heroes not to survive their liberties, but to pour out their blood as a sacrifice to their country, on this field of their ancient prowess. Their commander explained to them that a death almost certain awaited them, and gave free leave to those who desired, to withdraw, without a word of reproach from any one. The words of Reding have been preserved by one who was present on the field : "The only question for us is, to know if we have the virtue to follow the example that our ancestors left us on this plain of Morgarten. Let us not deceive one another at an hour so solemn. I had rather have an hundred men prepared for every event, and upon whom I can rely, than five hundred who would spread confusion by their flight, and render vain the sacrifice of the brave men who would still resist. For me, my course is taken. I will not forsake you, nor the peril of our dear country. Death on the field of Morgarten, and no retreat. If any are not ready for this, let them depart; but if you all share my sentiments, let two step from the ranks, and in your name plight with me our faith." The soldiers, melted in the tears that brave men know how to shed-tears of admiration and affection-with united voices affirmed their constant purpose of standing by their heroic commander, and gave him the required sign. This was on the first of May in the fatal year of '98. Should we record the events of the next four days and nights, as they are narrated by the trustworthy and brave old men of Schwytz who took part in them, and still survive, the story would seem incredible. Who, that knows not the Swiss, could believe through what distances, and over what craggy pathways in mountain passes, trembling old men, with women and little children, dragged heavy artillery across the country? Or with what speed the little bands of Schwytz, with a few from Uri and Zug, gathered on the final battlefield? Or how they fought and labored almost without rest for ninety-six hours, in presence of the vast army of France? Never were the French more reckless in their bravery; but men, like the men of Schwytz, could not be vanquished. They might be slain, but even in death they must be conquerors. So long as the fighting continued, and so often as the French showed themselves on the plain, they were driven from it as the snowflakes before the tempest. Time would be given but for a single well-directed fire, when the drum would sound the charging home, and with fixed bayonets they would rush furiously upon their enemies. The French had previously affected to despise them as undisciplined herdsmen; but when they saw them, in spite of their best directed fire, rush over a level of 3000 feet, without one of them shrinking, or falling into the slightest disarray, the very flower of the French army were palsied with terror, and if they were too brave to fly, they only remained to present defenceless breasts to the plunge of the Swiss bayonets. But at length the very depth of their patriotism inspired them with a wiser thought. As they saw the race of their canton being extinguished part by part, like their altar candles during the service of Tenebræ, the reflection grew urgent: Is then the canton of Schwytz to be wiped out from the face of the earth? Are the great deeds of our fathers to be forgotten, or to be rehearsed henceforth only by strangers? And in the breasts of some there sprang up a courage higher than that by which they had desired to die for their country. It was a great confidence in the vitality and force of their national constitution that made them willing to live for it-to live, and to submit, in the firm persuasion that thus they must at length regain their liberties. Yet this reasonable and heroic thought seemed too hard for many of them. At the rate of loss that they had hitherto sustained, two weeks would suffice for their entire destruction; and though the loss of the French was very much greater, it was evident that it affected them but little, as their supply of new men was without limit. Resistance was therefore hopeless; yet they found it sweet to die for their country, to pour out their hearts' blood into her bosom while she was yet unpolluted by the foot of the conqueror. In a council of war, it required all the influence of the priesthood, and all the motives of their faith, to reconcile them to abandon the now fruitless contest. They yielded, however, at length, on the express stipulation that the French should respect their religion, their persons, and their property. This was promised by Schauenburg, the French General, and he kept his word; and struck with admiration at a heroism that had cost him fifteen of his best men for every one of the Swiss, he added, moreover, the most distinguished marks of a regard that did honor to his own sentiments. In this rapid sketch of the written and unwritten history of Switzerland, and which we hope has not been without interest in itself, we have wished to develop the Swiss character and constitution, and thus prepare our readers for a better appreciation of the political question now that year, and was therefore framed after the fall of the democratic cantons of Lucerne, Friburg, and Solothurn, along with their aristocratic allies, Berne and Zurich, and just one month before the prostration of Schwytz, which we have a little above recorded. agitating that country. To the immediate | Directory, which is dated April 5th, of consideration of this latter we now proceed. II. The country of Vaud, which, previous to the French Revolution, had been a dependency of the canton of Berne, had complained of this unreasonable political inferiority, on the ground of its own importance in wealth and population, and its obligations to afford its full quota for the common defence of the confederation. Berne disregarded its appeal, and as one vicious extreme always brings on its opposite, the Vaudois, instead of persisting in their lawful demands, in which they were powerfully seconded by Schwytz and the other democratic cantons, gave way to secret and treasonable plots for subverting the entire Swiss constitution, and forming of the whole one consolidated government, in place of a confederacy of states. The presiding genius of this wretched scheme was Cæsar de Laharpe, an inhabitant of Vaud, who formed of his fellowcitizens the first jacobin or revolutionary club within the borders of Switzerland, and scrupled nothing to invite the intervention of the French Republic to carry out his project by force of arms. In degree as the French advanced in gaining dominion over the country, the ancient name of Swiss, that the whole league had taken from the gallant canton of Schwytz, was changed to the artificial appellation of Helvetians,* and the new organization was called "The Helvetic Republic, One and Indivisible." Here, all simply, is the origin of that political revolution, that within the past year has a second time been violently forced upon Switzerland. And as the contest has been the same, so if the conservative cantons in 1847 had wished to remonstrate with the radicals, they could not have found better words or arguments wherewith to defend the freedom and sovereignty of their respective cantonal governments, than were used by the same cantons against the incursions of French jacobinism, in 1798. On this account we will quote some sentences from the memorial of the five democratic cantons, Schwytz, Uri, Unterwalden, Zug and Glaris, to the French A brilliant political writer of European celebrity, has said: "No human institution can last. if it bears not a name taken from the national language, originating itself without anterior deliberanon."-De Maistre, Principe Generateur. "The French Republic," they say, "in declaring that it is the friend and ally of the Swiss nation, and promising to protect its rights assist the inhabitants of the aristocratical states and sovereignty, professed first to wish only to in regaining the primitive liberty of which the democratic cantons have always been the source and exemplars. On the sudden we received from the provisional government of Solothurn, the plan of a new Helvetic constitution, with a pressing invitation to concur in it; and learned, at the same time, unofficially, that all the cantons of Switzerland would be obliged to submit to it. "In vain should we attempt to describe to you the grief with which it fills our souls. We esteem no misfortune equal to the loss of the free constitution established by our ancestors, adapted to our wants and manners, and cemented during ages, by the enjoyment of all the comfort and happiness of which our peaceful valleys are susceptible. "Permit us in the first place, to ask you plainly what you have found in our constituWhere can tions adverse to your principles? you find a mode of government, whose exercise hands of the people, than in ours? where and sovereign rights are more entirely in the civil and political equality is more perfect? where every citizen enjoys a larger measure of liberty? Our chains are but the easy ones of religion and good morals; our yoke but the laws to which we have ourselves agreed. If in other states the people have much to desire, with us, at least, the children of William Tell; with us, who have maintained the constitution he left us, without any change, and for whose preservation we now appeal to you with all the energy that the consciousness of the most just cause inspires; with us, but one unanimous wish remains, and that is of remaining subject to the government which Providence queathed to us. and the courage of our ancestors have be "We, the people of these countries, whose sovereignty you have so often promised to respect, are ourselves the sovereigns of the cantons; we elect and displace our magistrates as we choose; our councils are elected by the several districts, and our representatives are in the truest manner the representatives of the people. 66 Such, in the abstract, are the bases of our And on the same day, to the same Directory, the people of Appenzell, St. Gall, Zaggenburg, Rheinthal, and Sargans, protested : Why is it wished to democratize us? Is not our constitution sufficiently democratical? Are not our people sole sovereignare they not their own law-makers--do they not choose their own magistrates, and that according to a representative system so well contrived that a better is not easy to conceive of? These are facts which it is not possible to call in doubt." But "la grande France," "la grande nation," and especially "les grands jacobins," like the empirics of our own day, must needs "re-organize" a society that desired it so little. Something must be wrong with it, or it would admire their medicine. Ubi voluntas, ibi libertas; and therefore, when the will of jacobins and radicals is to demolish existing institutions, to oppress and plunder their neighbors, and thus to make themselves rulers and great men, if aught opposes their will, they are greatly grieved at the violence done to liberty. liest acts of the Congress of the European powers assembled first in Paris, was the reland. Thereupon the ancient cantons of cognition of the independence of Switzerthe confederation instantly reclaimed their separate sovereignty, and measures were taken at the earliest possible date, to revive the league, with no other difference than that the states which had before been dependencies of the ancient cantons were now either incorporated into one or another of them, or were themselves erected into sovereign confederates; so that in the new confederacy there should be twenty-two independent sovereign cantons. In the first movements of the cantons towards renewing the league, Schwytz gave a fresh proof of that profound political sagacity that has almost entitled her to the character of a prophetic oracle. Uniting in her sentiments a portion of Unterwalden and Appenzell, she refused to unite in the ancient pact, as descrying within the other cantons a lawless and unfaithful principle, that would not scruple afterwards to abuse the tie of confederacy to the invasion of her cherished principles in politics and in religion. The diet of the other cantons, and none more loudly than Berne and Vaud, protested their good faith, and their attachment to the time-honored and cherished principle of the sovereign independence of each canton in all things whatever, relating to its internal affairs. Schwytz still declined concurrence, until by a separate assurance of the great European powers, which were now continuing the sittings of their Congress at Vienna in 1815, it had received the solemn endorsement of all Europe to the bond of the diet, that no change in this particular of cantonal freedom should be made, at least without the unanimous consent of every single canton. Upon this doubly guarantied provision Schwytz and its companions descended to enter into a league, some of the parties to which they could not profess to esteem trustworthy. But their motive was worthy of them: it was not only in compliance with the entreaties of some of the nearest cantons, with whom they sympathized in principles, but also, and chiefly, to be able to extend a protection greatly desirable to Friburg, which was like them democratic in politics and similar in religion, and yet On the fall of Napoleon, one of the ear-geographically was in an isolated position, It was a matter of course that the moment the force of external pressure was removed from Switzerland, the Republic one and indivisible of Cæsar de Lafarge should fall amid popular execrations. Napoleon himself was obliged to confess, in opposition to his earlier conduct, that the more he became acquainted with that country, the more convinced he was that it could never continue under a single government. And in 1802, Lord Hawkesbury, in an official note from Downing street, declared, in the behalf of England, that the crown looked upon the exertions of the Swiss cantons "in no other light than as the lawful efforts of a brave and generous people to recover their ancient laws and government, and to procure the reestablishment of a system which experience has demonstrated to be favorable to the maintenance of their domestic happiness." |