noble, oligarch, and politician governed, but until the past half
century, or less, never the masses. Half the area of Switzerland, at
present containing 40 per cent of the inhabitants, was brought into the
federation only in the present century. Of this recent accession,
Geneva, for a brief term part of France, had previously long been a pure
oligarchy, and more remotely a dictatorship; Neuchâtel had been a
dependency of the crown of Prussia, never, in fact, fully released until
1857; Valais and the Grisons, so-called independent confederacies, had
been under ecclesiastical rule; Ticino had for three centuries been
governed as conquered territory, the privilege of ruling over it
purchased by bailiffs from its conquerors, the ancient Swiss League--"a
harsh government," declares the Encyclopædia Britannica, "one of the
darkest passages of Swiss history." Of the older Switzerland, Bâle,
Berne, and Zurich were oligarchical cities, each holding in feudality
extensive neighboring regions. Not until 1833 were the peasants of Bâle
placed on an equal footing with the townspeople, and then only after
serious disturbances. And the inequalities between lord and serf, victor
and vanquished, voter and disfranchised, existed in all the older states
save those now known as the Landsgemeinde cantons. Says Vincent: "Almost
the only thread that held the Swiss federation together was the
possession of subject lands. In these they were interested as partners
in a business corporation. Here were revenues and offices to watch and
profits to divide, and matters came to such a pass that almost the only
questions upon which the Diet could act in concert were the inspection
of accounts and other affairs connected with the subject territories.
The common properties were all that prevented complete rupture on
several critical occasions. Another marked feature in the condition of
government was the supremacy gained by the patrician class.
Municipalities gained the upper hand over rural districts, and within
the municipalities the old families assumed more and more privileges in