LITMIR.BIZ

7

Under the so-called Helvetic Republic of 1798, the Cantons ceased to be sovereign States, and became mere divisions, like counties or departments. One of the earliest provisions of this constitution abolishes the ancient democracies of the Forest Cantons. “Die Regierungsform, wenn sie auch sollte verändert werden, soll allezeit eine repräsentative Demokratie sein.” (See the text in Bluntschli, ii. 305.) The “repräsentative Demokratie” thus forced on these ancient commonwealths by the sham democrats of Paris was meant to exclude the pure democracy of Athens and Uri.

The Federal system was in some sort restored by the Act of Mediation (Vermittlungsakte) of Napoleon Buonaparte, when First Consul in 1803. See the text in Bluntschli, ii. 322.

8

Appenzell, though its history had long been connected with that of the Confederates, was not actually admitted as a Canton till December 1513, being the youngest of the thirteen Cantons which formed the Confederation down to 1798. See Zellweger, Geschichte des Appenzellischen Volkes, ii. 366, and the text in his Urkunden, ii. part 2, p. 481, or in the older Appenzeller Chronick of Walser (Saint Gallen, 1740), 410, and the Act in his Anhang, p. 18. The frontispiece of this volume contains a lively picture of a Landesgemeinde. In 1597 the Canton was divided into the two Half-cantons of Ausser-Rhoden, Protestant, and Inner-Rhoden, Catholic. See Zellweger, iii. part 2, p. 160; Walser, 553.

9

On armed assemblies see Norman Conquest, ii. 331.

10

I perhaps need hardly insist on this point after the references given in my first note; but I find it constantly needful to explain that there is no such thing as a Swiss nation in any but a political sense. The Cantons were simply members of the Empire which gradually won a greater independence than their fellows. And the Forest Cantons, and the German-speaking Swiss generally, do not even form a distinct part of the German nation; they are simply three settlements of the Alemanni, just as the three divisions of Lincolnshire are three settlements of the Angles.

11

The earliest instance that I know of the use of the word Englaland is in the Treaty with Olaf and Justin in 991. Its earliest use in the English Chronicles is in 1014. See Norman Conquest, i. 78, 276, 605, 629. The oldest use that I know of the name Yorkshire (Eoforwicscír) is in the Chronicles under 1065. See Norman Conquest, ii. 478. Deira is, of course, as old as Gregory the Great’s pun.

12

The real history of English parishes has yet to be worked out. I feel sure that they will be found to have much more in common with the continental Gemeinden than would seem at first sight. Some hints may be found in a little pamphlet which I lately came across, called “The Parish in History.”

13

The nature of democracy is set forth by Periklês in the Funeral Oration, Thucydides, ii. 37: ὄνομα μὲν διὰ τὸ μὴ ἐς ὀλίγους ἀλλ' ἐς πλείονας οἰκεῖν δημοκρατία κέκληται· μέτεστι δὲ κατὰ μὲν τοὺς νόμους πρὸς τὰ ἴδια διάφορα πᾶσι τὸ ἴσον, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἀξίωσιν ὡς ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ εὐδοκιμεῖ. It is set forth still more clearly by Athênagoras of Syracuse, vi. 39, where the functions of different classes in a democracy are clearly distinguished: ἐγὼ δέ φημι πρῶτα μὲν δῆμον ξύμπαν ὠνομάσθαι, ὀλιγαρχίαν δὲ μέρος, ἔπειτα φύλακας μὲν ἀρίστους εἶναι χρημάτων τοὺς πλουσίους, βουλεῦσαι δ' ἂν βέλτιστα τοὺς ξυνετοὺς, κρῖναι δ' ἂν ἀκούσαντας ἄριστα τοὺς πολλοὺς, καὶ ταῦτα ὁμοίως καὶ κατὰ μέρη καὶ ξύμπαντα ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ ἰσομοιρεῖν. Here a distinct sphere is assigned both to wealth and to special intelligence. Nearly the same division is drawn by a writer who might by comparison be called aristocratic. Isokratês (Areop. 29) holds that the management of public affairs should be immediately in the hands of the men of wealth and leisure, who should act as servants of the People, the People itself being their master – or, as he does not scruple to say, Tyrant– with full power of reward and punishment: ἐκεῖνοι διεγνωκότες ἦσαν ὅτι δεῖ τὸν μὲν δῆμον ὥσπερ τύραννον καθιστάναι τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ κολάζειν τοὺς ἐξαμαρτάνοντας καὶ κρίνειν περὶ τῶν ἀμφισβητουμένων, τοὺς δὲ σχολὴν ἄγειν δυναμένους καὶ βίον ἱκανὸν κεκτημένους ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῶν κοινῶν ὥσπερ οἰκέτας, καὶ δικαίους μὲν γενομένους ἐπαινεῖσθαι καὶ στέργειν ταύτῃ τῇ τιμῇ, κακῶς δὲ διοικήσαντας μηδεμιᾶς συγγνώμης τυγχάνειν, ἀλλὰ ταῖς μεγίσταις ζημίαις περιπίπτειν. This he elsewhere (Panath 166) calls democracy with a mixture of aristocracy – not oligarchy (τὴν δημοκρατίαν τὴν ἀριστοκρατίᾳ μεμιγμένην).

The unfavourable meaning which is often attached to the word democracy, when it does not arise from simple ignorance, probably arises from the use of the word by Aristotle. He makes (Politics, iii. 7) three lawful forms of government, kingship (βασιλεία), aristocracy (ἀριστοκρατία),and what he calls specially πολιτεία or commonwealth. Of these he makes three corruptions, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy (τυραννίς, ὀλιγαρχία, δημοκρατία), defining democracy to be a government carried on for the special benefit of the poor (πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον τὸ τῶν ἀπόρων). In this there is something of a philosopher’s contempt for all popular government, and it is certain that Aristotle’s way of speaking is not that which is usual in the Greek historians. Polybios, like Herodotus and Thucydides, uses the word democracy in the old honourable sense, and he takes (ii. 38) as his special type of democracy the constitution of the Achaian League, which certainly had in it a strong element of practical aristocracy (see History of Federal Government, cap. v.): ἰσηγορίας καὶ παρρησίας καὶ καθόλου δημοκρατίας ἀληθινῆς σύστημα καὶ προαίρεσιν εἰλικρινεστέραν οὐκ ἂν εὕροι τις τῆς παρὰ τοῖς Ἀχαιοῖς ὑπαρχούσης. In short, what Aristotle calls πολιτεία Polybios calls δημοκρατία; what Aristotle calls δημοκρατία Polybios calls ὀχλοκρατία.

14

It follows that, when the commonwealth of Florence disfranchised the whole of the noble families, it lost its right to be called a democracy. See the passing of the Ordinance of Justice in Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, iv. 65; Chroniche di Giovanni Villani, viii. 1.