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Updated: June 24, 2025
From the steps of the senate-house the burgomaster Walder exhorted the departing troops to discipline and a fearless defence. Commander Schmied was appointed army-chaplain. Without a summons from the government Zwingli rode along, a halberd on his shoulder. The report of the outbreak, Zurich's declaration of war, communicated to the Four Cantons by Schwyz, set them also in motion.
The protestations of the directors, Bay and Pfyffer, were unheeded; Rapinat deposed them by virtue of a French warrant and nominated Ochs and Dolder in their stead. The patriotic feelings of the Swiss revolted at this tyranny; Schwyz rose in open insurrection; the peasantry, headed by Aloys Reding, seized and garrisoned Lucerne and called the whole country to arms against the French invader.
These exaggerations are to be corrected not by concealment, but by a candid statement of the facts. The government of Schwyz, which had hitherto favored it, now first opened its eyes. Just as Zwingli began his reformation in Switzerland, Martin Luther made his appearance in the German Empire.
But Luzern and Schwyz renowned their complaints before a conference of the Five Cantons, and it was resolved to appeal to Bern with a full representation of the faithless conduct of Zurich in the affair of St. Gall, and an earnest protest against it. Two skillful orators, the schultheiss Golder of Luzern, and Joseph Amberg of Schwyz, were commissioned to do this.
In vain did Zurich intercede for him; in vain did she write more earnest letters; in vain did she send the treasurer Edlebach to Schwyz. On the day of his execution the Schwyzers answered: "The territory of Utznach belongs not to you it is a property bought by us and our Confederates of Glarus. For what we do there you have no right to call us to account.
Yea, when they defended their fatherland and freedom at Morgarten, Sempach and Næfels, where three hundred and fifty men attacked fifteen thousand for the twelfth time in one day and at last beat them, among whom ye good people of Schwyz had thirty, and in many other places, when they went to battle and returned home always with joy and honor, then they rested in peace, stained by no disgrace.
At a conference between their deputies and those of the Glarners at Wyl, the Zurichers were obliged to feel this. Envoys came also from Luzern and Schwyz, and the newly reviving party of the old faith rallied around them. Then arose a tumult among the latter, and for a moment the danger was so great that the Glarners meditated flight, but the Zurichers ordered an alarm to be sounded.
Then an attempt was made, as had been done before by Schwyz, to maintain it as a principle in the government of the Common Territories, that even in ecclesiastical affairs the majority of votes among the ruling cantons should decide. Of all the points at issue this was the most difficult. Over it the strife continually broke out anew.
Employed to its utmost in Zurich, Schwyz, Berne, Soleure, Bâle Land, Aargau, Thurgau, and the Grisons, in these cantons the Referendum permits no law to be passed or expenditure beyond a stipulated sum to be made by the legislature without a vote of the people. This is known as the obligatory Referendum.
They used their power wantonly; unjust and weary imprisonments for slightest faults; haughty manners, and all the stings of insolent authority; and no redress to be had at the King's hands. The peace and happy security of the men of Schwyz were gone, and they looked in one another's faces for the thing that was to be done.
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