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This centralizing process, by which several small communities became absorbed in a larger one, of course was far from being an idea specially Roman. Not only did the development of Latium and of the Sabellian stocks hinge upon the distinction between national centralization and cantonal independence; the case was the same with the development of the Hellenes.

The impulse of the nation towards freedom found doubtless a certain gratification in these cantonal unions; but they were in every respect unsatisfactory. The union was of the loosest kind, constantly fluctuating between alliance and hegemony; the representation of the whole body in peace by the federal diets, in war by the general, was in the highest degree feeble.

But I am unable to see in what respect the town-meeting in Massachusetts differs from the Landesgemeinde or cantonal assembly in Switzerland, save that it is held in a town-hall and not in the open air, that it is conducted with somewhat less of pageantry, and that the freemen who attend do not carry arms even by way of ceremony. In the Swiss assembly, as Mr.

To say nothing of the admission of a number of Celts of rank into Roman citizenship and even of several perhaps into the Roman senate, it was probably Caesar who introduced, although with certain restrictions, the Latin instead of the native tongue as the official language within the several cantons in Gaul, and who introduced the Roman instead of the national monetary system on the footing of reserving the coinage of gold and of denarii to the Roman authorities, while the smaller money was to be coined by the several cantons, but only for circulation within the cantonal bounds, and this too in accordance with the Roman standard.

In both city and cantonal councils each member is the head of an administrative department. The cantonal executive council has the power to suspend the deliberations of the city executive council and those of the communal councils whenever in its judgment these bodies transcend their legal powers or refuse to conform to the law.

Last came the subject-lands, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the masterful genius of Philip.

Development of Knighthood Breaking Up of the Old Cantonal Constitution It is simply the reverse side of the total want of urban commonwealths among the Celts just noticed, that the opposite pole of political development, knighthood, so thoroughly preponderates in the Celtic clan-constitution.

After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges.

While the Confederation coins the metallic money current in the country, it is forbidden by the constitution to monopolize the issue of notes or guarantee the circulation of any bank. There are thirty-five banks of issue doing business under cantonal law. Of these, eighteen, known as cantonal banks, either are managed or have their notes guaranteed by the respective cantons.

That may appear at first sight to be a native system, wholly out of harmony with the Roman method of government by municipalities. Yet such was not its actual effect. The cantonal or tribal magistrates were classified and arranged just like the magistrates of a municipality. They even used the same titles.