Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

18
in 1351, Glarus and Zug in 1352, Berne in 1353, Freiburg and Solothurn
(Soleur) in 1481, Basle and Schaffhausen in 1501, Appenzell in 1513,—
making in all thirteen cantons at the time of the Reformation. With them
were connected by purchase, or conquest, or free consent, as common
territories or free bailiwicks, f8 the adjoining lands of Aargau, Thurgau,
Wallis, Geneva, Graubündten (Grisons, Rhätia), the princedom of
Neuchatel and Valangin, and several cities (Biel, Mühlhausen, Rotweil,
Locarno, etc.). Since 1798 the number of cantons has increased to twentytwo,
with a population of nearly three millions (in 1890). The Republic of
the United States started with thirteen States, and has grown likewise by
purchase or conquest and the organization and incorporation of new
territories, but more rapidly, and on a much larger scale.
The romantic story of William Tell, so charmingly told by Egidius Tschudi,
the Swiss Herodotus, f9 and by Johannes von Müller, the Swiss Tacitus, and
embellished by the poetic genius of Friedrich Schiller, must be abandoned
to the realm of popular fiction, like the cognate stories of Scandinavian and
German mythology, but contains, nevertheless, an abiding element of truth
as setting forth the spirit of those bold mountaineers who loved liberty and
independence more than their lives, and expelled the foreign invaders from
their soil. The glory of an individual belongs to the Swiss people. The
sacred oath of the men of Grütli on the Lake of Lucerne, at the foot of
Seelisberg (1306 or 1308?), and the more certain confederation of Dec. 9,
1315, at Brunnen, were renewals of the previous covenant of 1291. f10
The Swiss successfully vindicated their independence against the attacks of
the House of Habsburg in the memorable battles of Morgarten (“the
Marathon of Switzerland” 1315), Sempach (1386), and Näfels (1388),
against King Louis XI. of France at St. Jacob near Basle (the Thermopylae
of Switzerland, 1444), and against Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy at
Granson, Murten (Morat), and Nancy (1476 and 1477).
Nature and history made Switzerland a federative republic. This republic
was originally a loose, aristocratic confederacy of independent cantons,
ruled by a diet of one house where each canton had the same number of
deputies and votes, so that a majority of the Diet could defeat a majority of
the people. This state of things continued till 1848, when (after the defeat
of the Sonderbund of the Roman Catholic cantons) the constitution was
remodelled on democratic principles, after the American example, and the
legislative power vested in two houses, one (the Ständerath or Senate)