Altdorf, where the general assemblies are held, and the LandAmman and regency reside, is the principal village.

The Land-Amman and the principal magistrates are elected in the general assembly, in which all the male persons of sixteen 1 years of age have a right to a seat and a vote.

The senate, or council of regency, in whom is vested the executive power, is composed of sixty members, taken equally from each genossamen, though they reside at the capital borough. From this council are taken all the necessary officers.2

There are two other councils; one called the chamber of seven, and the other the chamber of fifteen, for the management of lesser affairs.

The valley of Urseren, three leagues in length and one in breadth, marches under the banners of Uri; but it is but an ally, connected by treaty in 1410. It has its proper LandAmman and council, and has also a bailiwick subject to it.

The village of Gersaw is a league in breadth, and two in length; there are about a thousand inhabitants. This is the smallest republic in Europe; it has, however, its Land-Amman, its council of regency, and its general assembly of burgesses, its courts of justice and militia, although it is said there is not a single horse in the whole empire. Such a diminutive republic, in an obscure corner, and unknown, is interesting to Americans, not only because every spot of earth on which civil liberty flourishes deserves their esteem; but, particularly, because it shows the impossibility of erecting even the smallest government, among the poorest people, without different orders, councils, and balances.

SCHWITZ.

THE canton of Schwitz has the honor of giving the name to the whole confederation, because the first battle for independency was fought there; yet it consists only of villages divided into six quarters, the first of which is Schwitz, where the ordinary regency of the country resides. The sovereign is the whole country; that is to say, the sovereignty resides in the general assembly of the country, where all the males of sixteen years of age have a right of entry and suffrage.

Yet they have their Land-Amman, and their ordinary regency, at which the Land-Amman presides, composed of sixty counsellors, taken equally from the six districts. All the necessary officers are taken from this council.

There are, besides, the secret chamber, the chamber of seven, and the chamber of nine, for finance, justice, and police.

THE GRISONS.

In the republic of the three leagues of the Grisons, the sovereign is all the people of a great part of the ancient Rhetia. This is called a democratical republic of three leagues. 1. The league of the Grisons. 2. The league Caddee.3 3. The league of Ten Jurisdictions. These three are united by the perpetual confederation of 1472, which has been several times renewed. The government resides sovereignly in the communities, where every thing is decided by the plurality of voices. These elect and instruct their deputies for the general diet, which is held once a year. Each league elects also its chief or president, who presides at the diets, each one in his league. The general diet assembles one year at Ilanz, in the league of the Grisons; one year at Coire, in the league Caddee; and one year at Davos, in the league of Ten Jurisdictions. There is another ordinary assembly, composed of chiefs, and of three deputies from each league, which is held at Coire, in the month of January. Besides these regular assemblies, they hold congresses whenever the necessities of the state require them; sometimes of the chiefs alone; sometimes of certain deputies from each league, according to the importance of the case. These assemblies are held at Coire. The three leagues form but one body in general affairs; and, although one league, has more deputies than another, they count the voices without distinction of leagues. They conduct separately their particular affairs. Their country is thirty-five leagues in length and thirty in breadth.

Even in this happy country, where there is more equality than in almost any other, there are noble families, who, although they live like their neighbors by the cultivation of the earth, and think it no disgrace, are very proud of the immense antiquity of their descent, and boast of it, and value themselves upon it as much as Julius Cæsar did, who was descended from a goddess.2

1 The grand council is now composed of sixty-five members, chosen for a year. An executive council, of three persons, is chosen by the grand council, one from the people at large of each league. These can serve but two years successively.

"The supreme authority is not absolutely and finally vested in the diet, but in the communities at large; for, in all affairs of importance, such as declaring war, making peace, and imposing taxes, the deputies either bring positive instructions from their constituents, or refer those points, concerning which they have no instructions, to the decision of the several communities; so that, in effect, the supreme power constitutionally resides in the body of the people, and not in their representatives at the diet." Coxe, Switzerland, iii. p. 227.

2 "Corruption and influence are not in any national parliament more conspicuous than in the diet of the Grisons. For although, in general, those deputies, annually chosen by every male of a stated age, are subject to be controlled in their votes by written orders from their constituents, yet they frequently contrive to elude this restriction. Sometimes the instructions are drawn up, with the consent of the community, under the sole direction of the deputy himself; at other times, an exemption from positive instructions, and the power of voting at his own pleasure, is purchased by the deputy from his constituents. Sometimes, again, the deputy, although he may not have interest sufficient to gain either of these points, has still sufficient address to get his instructions so obscurely worded as to admit a doubtful interpretation.

"By various intrigues of this kind, the greatest part of the deputies ultimately acquire the power of voting as they please; and, as they chiefly obtain this power by corrupting their constituents, most of them, in return, sell their vote to the leading leading members of the diet. For most questions are carried, and most causes decided by bribery." Coxe. iii. pp. 231-2.

"The corruption which prevailed in this Grison confederacy is known to have been great and universal. Ever since the treaty of Milan, in 1639, the influence of Austria was predominant in all its concerns."

Brougham, Political Philosophy, pt. iii. p. 393.

"In treating of the democratical cantons in Switzerland, it is asserted, that their governments, and in particular that of Glarus, are not entirely democratical; for, though the sovereign is the whole country, and the sovereignty resides in the general assembly, yet it is a mixed government, in which the Land-Amman, statthalter or proconsul, the aristocratical order in the senate, and the democratical in the general assembly, are distinctly marked.

"To this it may be observed that, if these governments are mixed, the sovereignty is not so; and it is from the formation or constitution of the sovereignty that one judges of the nature of a society, and classes it as monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mixed. The Land-Amman, statthalter, proconsul,

1

THE UNITED PROVINCES OF THE LOW COUNTRIES.

THERE are in Friesland and Overyssell, and perhaps in the city of Dort, certain remnants of democratical powers, the fragments of an ancient edifice, which may possibly be reërected;

or senate, is no part of the sovereignty in any of the Swiss cantons. They are not properly called the government, but are rather the administrators of government in the executive and judicial departments. Their powers are derived from the democratical part, and are subordinate to that part which is the sovereign alone, without any mixture, it should seem, of monarchy or aristocracy; as neither the Land-Amman, statthalter, proconsul, or senate has any share in the making of the laws, imposing of taxes, forming of alliances, declaring war, or making of peace, which powers are vested in the democracy alone, and constitute the sovereign of the state.

"The officers in these governments and the senate (which acts merely officially and ministerially) are no checks to the assembly of the people; but, on the contrary, are obliged to comply with and obey the democratic will expressed therein, as much as the bailiff or constable is obliged to do, and make no more a part of the sovereignty than does the lowest officer.

"If the various councils, committees, corporations, and officers, established for the public, or any particular service in subordinancy to the sovereign, are considered as checks to, or making a part of it, there is no such government in the world as pure monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, for there are councils, committees, &c. in all of them.

"Should, however, some of the Swiss cantons, particularly that of Glarus, be perfectly democratical, they are by no means models for the citizens of America. The forms of government which might maintain the peace and promote the happiness of those small districts, would be ineffectual to promote the happiness of the citizens of the United States, the extent of whose country, their temper, disposition to each other, eagerness for unlimited commerce, &c. require a different system.

"If the reflections on what regards the supreme power of sovereignty are well founded, they are applicable to several parts of this publication."

S.

The remarks of the commentator are acute; but they seem hardly to do justice to the meaning, much less to confute the reasoning of the author. He assumes, as a basis, a proposition wholly at variance with that adopted at the outset of this work, and which would change the classification made of forms of government. It is not, and cannot be, from the mere formation of the sovereignty that a judgment can be made of the nature of a system; inasmuch as such a rule would resolve all governments derived from the popular will into simple democracies, no matter how much the powers may have been distributed. It moreover leaves no room for those mixed forms, in which many of the ancients and moderns perceive the greatest probability of duration and success.

The author, in his preliminary observations, takes a different point of departure. He assumes, as a rule of judging the nature of a government, the extent to which the sovereign power is exclusively reserved or generally distributed. Thus, his idea of a pure democracy is the sway of numbers acting directly upon every subject involving the common interest of a community. This is the only case in which the sovereignty is completely reserved to the people. Such a simple democracy he maintains to be impracticable; and, further, he denies that it can ever have existed.

As a consequence, the next step in his chain of reasoning, and one which his commentator appears to overlook, is, that the devolution of power to any man

but as there is nothing which favors M. Turgot's idea, I shall pass over this country for the present.

or body of men, having a recognized, independent, continuous existence for any period of time, is inconsistent with the idea of a simple democracy. "A simple democracy by representation," he says, "is a contradiction in terms." The same idea is more fully developed in the tenth number of the Federalist, written by Mr. Madison. It is laid down just as broadly by Filangieri:

"Ma io demandérei a Polibio, che cosa intendera egli sotto il nome di democrazia semplice. Forse quella, nella quale il popolo è nel tempo istesso legislatore, magistrato, senato, giudice, condottiero dell' esercito in tempo di guerra? Se questa era secondo lui una semplice democratia, l'esistensa di questa specie di governo è un imposibile politico."

Power may, however, be distributed in two separate forms; one, that of mere delegation, where all discretion is reserved from the agent employed to do certain specific and commanded acts; the other, that of representation, in which a general trust is conferred to act for the best interests of those represented. It is the presence of the last form which makes the characteristic feature of a republic. In the United States much confusion of ideas prevails on this subject, which is the origin of a good deal of the party violence of the times. The true distinction is generally well laid down in the sixth chapter of the third part of Lord Brougham's Political Philosophy, page 33.

It only remains in this connection to test the argument of the commentator by an appeal to the constitution of Glarus, upon which he rests for support. It appears that the general assembly or body of the people, in which the sovereignty resides, ordinarily meets only once a year. On the other hand, it elects the Amman, or chief executive magistrate, but twice in five years. Here is a clear grant of power for a long term. Next comes the senate or council, chosen annually, but not in the general assembly. The members represent the several smaller communities, organized upon a distribution of power differing from that centered in the mass. They exercise all the usual legislative, with some executive and judicial powers, subject, however, to a single restriction. Every law passed must be submitted for ratification to the general assembly. None can be proposed to the latter body, which has not been subjected to the ordeal of the senate at least a month beforehand, and upon which the sense of that body has not been taken. From all which, it is plain that great trusts, beyond that of mere agency, are necessarily created, subject only to the supervision of the people in their annual assembly. These must, in practice, materially limit the exercise of their sovereignty.

It would seem, then, to be clear, that the single fact of the democratic origin of power distributed in any form of government does not invalidate the position of the author, which excepts it from the scope of his definition of a simple democracy, where power is never supposed to go out of its hands. In truth, if a judgment were to be made of forms solely from their outward show, the most complete democracy among the Swiss republics would not seem to be Glarus. The reduction of power to its first elements, the township or local community, is carried further in the Grisons than anywhere else. The principle of representation is not acknowledged; inasmuch as every delegate to the diet is denied the right of exercising the smallest discretion, and is bound to act in every instance as the instructed agent of his employers. The age at which men vote is regulated in each community. In many it is fixed at fourteen years. The diet is a federal, rather than a representative assembly, in which the chief of each of the three leagues forming the confederacy presides in his turn. And these three chiefs, in conjunction with a commission of nine persons, equally selected from each league, constitute all of the executive power established.

There is nothing in appearance so democratic as this in any form adopted in