Note (Back) — Chapter XXII

453. Dominance of the Federal Principle.—In its preamble the Swiss constitution proclaims its object to be "to confirm the alliance of the Confederation and to maintain and to promote the unity, strength, and honor of the Swiss nation;" and in its second article it affirms that it is the purpose of the Confederation "to secure the independence of the country against foreign nations, to maintain peace and order within, to protect the liberty and the rights of the confederates, and to foster their common welfare."[593] The use of the term "nation" (which, curiously, nowhere occurs in the constitution of the United States) might seem to imply a considerably larger measure of centralization than in fact exists. For although the effect of the constitution of 1848 was to convert a loosely organized league into a firmly constructed state—to transform, as the Germans would say, a Staatenbund into a Bundesstaat—the measure of consolidation attained fell, and still falls, somewhat short of that which has been realized in the United States, and even in Germany. There are in the Confederation twenty-two cantons, of which three (Unterwalden, Basel, and Appenzell) have split into half-cantons; so that there are really twenty-five political units, each with its own government, its own laws, and its own political conditions. In territorial extent these cantons vary all the way from 2,773 to 14 square miles, and in population, from 642,744 to 13,796;[594] and the primary fact of the Swiss governmental system is the remarkable measure of political independence which these divisions, small as well as large, possess.