Federal Treaty
The Federal Treaty (German: Bundesvertrag, French: Pacte fédéral, Italian: Patto federale) was the legal foundation for the new
The Federal Treaty defined a confederation between 22 independent Cantons. From 1815 until the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848, it acted as the Restorationist Constitution of Switzerland.
Historical development
When the anti-French troops marched into Switzerland in 1813, the Act of Mediation imposed by Napoleon in 1803 lost meaning and was repealed by 10 of the 19 cantons, who simultaneously founded the Confederate Convention in Zürich with the goal of establishing a new "Federal Union" (Bundesverein) with the Old Swiss Confederacy in mind. 9 old and 5 new cantons were represented. From February 1814 on, a new constitution was being negotiated to replace the Act of Mediation.
At the same time, the
Contents of the Federal Treaty
The Federal Treaty consisted of 15 Articles. It guaranteed the equally treated freedom of the cantons, civil rights were mentioned in the so-called Untertanenverbot ("prohibition of subjects"). The federal authority, greatly weakened in comparison to the Act of Mediation, was in the hands of the Diet, that alternately convened in the prominent cities of Zürich, Bern and Lucerne. The sole competence of the Confederacy was in the common security policy (army). There was no longer any Swiss Landammann either. Territorial conflicts between the cantons were to be resolved by an arbitration court of the Congress of Vienna.
An open and unresolved issue was the question of a Sonderbund or separate alliance. In 1847, this led to the Sonderbund War and eventually in 1848 to the replacement of the Federal Treaty by the Federal Constitution.
See also
Notes
- ^ Wilhelm Oechsli, History of Switzerland 1499-1914, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 368.
External links
- Bundesvertrag zwischen den XXII Cantonen der Schweiz im Wortlaut Archived 2014-08-07 at the Wayback Machine
- Renato Morosoli: Bundesvertrag in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.