Federalist 19: Examination of the German, Polish and Swiss Confederacies
Federalist 19: Examination of the German, Polish and Swiss Confederacies
SEVERAL EUROPEAN CONFEDERATIONS OFFER more recent evidence than the examples of ancient confederacies discussed in Federalist 18.
Germany After Charlemagne
In the early ages of Christianity, Germany was occupied by seven distinct nations, none of which had a common chief. One of the seven – the Franks – conquered the Gauls and established the kingdom now known as France. In the ninth century, its warlike monarch – Charlemagne – carried his victorious arms in every direction, and Germany became a part of his vast dominions. His principal Germanic vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, were permitted to continue participation in their national political bodies.
Charlemagne possessed the ensigns, dignity and reality of imperial power, but his sons dismembered the empire, and Germany was erected into a separate and independent empire. Its leaders gradually threw off the yoke and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence. The force of imperial sovereignty was insufficient to restrain them, or to preserve the unity and tranquility of the empire. Furious private wars, accompanied with every species of calamity, were carried on between the different princes and states. Unable to maintain the public order, the imperial authority declined by degrees until it was almost extinct in the anarchy which ensued during the long interval between the death of the last emperor of the Swabian line, and the accession of the first emperor of the Austrian lines, which arose to the southeast of Germany. In the eleventh century the emperors enjoyed full sovereignty; but by the fifteenth they had little more than the symbols and decorations of power.
The Germanic Feudal System
Out of this feudal system (which itself has many of the important features of a confederacy) grew a federal system which constitutes the Germanic empire. Its powers are vested (1) in a formal deliberative assembly known as a diet, which represents the component members of the confederacy; (2) in the emperor, who is the executive magistrate, with a negative on the decrees of the diet; and (3) in the imperial chamber and the aulic council, the two judicial tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in controversies which concern the empire, or which happen among its members.
Composition of the German Diet
The German diet possesses the general power of legislating for the empire, making war and peace, contracting alliances, assessing quotas of troops and money, constructing fortresses, regulating coin, admitting new members, and subjecting disobedient members to the ban of the empire by degrading his sovereign rights and forfeiting his possessions. The members of the confederacy are expressly restricted from entering into compacts prejudicial to the empire, imposing tolls and duties on their mutual intercourse without the consent of the emperor and diet, altering the value of money, doing injustice to one another, or affording assistance or retreat to disturbers of the public peace. The ban applies to a violation of any of these restrictions. A member of the diet – in his capacity as a member – is subject in all cases to be judged by the emperor and diet. In his private capacity, jurisdiction over a member of the diet vests in the aulic council and imperial chamber.
Powers of the German Emperor
The prerogatives of the emperor are numerous, the most important being his exclusive right to make propositions to the diet and veto its resolutions, name ambassadors, confer dignities and titles, fill vacant electorates, found universities, grant privileges not injurious to the states of the empire, receive and apply the public revenues; and generally to watch over the public safety. In certain cases, the electors form a council to him. As emperor, he possesses no territory within the empire, nor receives any revenue for his support, but his powers still constitute him one of the most powerful princes in Europe.
The Germanic Feudal System in Practice
From this parade of constitutional powers, both in the representatives and head of this confederacy, one naturally would suppose it must form an exception to the general character which belongs to its kindred systems. Yet nothing would be further from reality. The fundamental principles on which it rests – the empire is a community of sovereigns, the diet is a representation of those sovereigns, and the laws are addressed to sovereigns – renders the empire a nerveless body, incapable of regulating its own members, insecure against external dangers, and agitated with unceasing fermentations in its own bowels.
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The history of Germany is a history of wars – wars between the emperor and the princes and states, and wars among the princes and states themselves – of the licentiousness of the strong and the oppression of the weak, of foreign intrusions and foreign intrigues, of requisitions of men and money disregarded in whole or in part, of attempts to enforce them which are either altogether abortive or attended with slaughter and desolation of the innocent along with the guilty, and of general imbecility, confusion, and misery.
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War in Germany
The history of Germany is a history of wars – wars between the emperor and the princes and states, and wars among the princes and states themselves – of the licentiousness of the strong and the oppression of the weak, of foreign intrusions and foreign intrigues, of requisitions of men and money disregarded in whole or in part, of attempts to enforce them which are either altogether abortive or attended with slaughter and desolation of the innocent along with the guilty, and of general imbecility, confusion, and misery.
In the sixteenth century, for example, the emperor, with one part of the empire on his side, was engaged against the other princes and states. In one of the conflicts, the emperor himself was put to flight and very near made a prisoner by the elector of Saxony. A king of Prussia was more than once pitted against his imperial sovereign, and commonly proved an overmatch for him. Controversies and wars among the members themselves were so common that the German annals are crowded with the bloody pages which describe them. Previous to the peace of Westphalia, Germany was desolated by a war of thirty years, in which the emperor (with one half of the empire) was on one side, and Sweden (with the other half) on the opposite side. Peace was at length negotiated, and dictated by foreign powers; and the articles of it, to which foreign powers are parties, made a fundamental part of the Germanic constitution.
German Disunity Is the Norm
Even if Germany happens to be more united by the emergency of self-defense, its situation remains deplorable. Military preparations require tedious discussions arising from the jealousies, pride, separate views, and clashing pretensions of sovereign bodies. Before the diet can settle arrangements, the enemy is in the field, and before the federal troops are ready to take the field, they are retiring into winter quarters. The small body of national troops – deemed necessary in time of peace – is not kept up, badly paid, infected with local prejudices, and supported by irregular and disproportionate contributions to the treasury.
The impossibility of maintaining order and dispensing justice among these sovereign subjects has produced the experiment of dividing the empire into nine or ten circles or districts, giving each an interior organization, and charging them with the military execution of the laws against delinquent and contumacious members. This experiment has served only to demonstrate more fully the radical vice of the constitution. Each circle is the miniature picture of the deformities of this political monster. They either fail to execute their commissions, or they do it with all the devastation and carnage of civil war. Sometimes whole circles are defaulters, and then they increase the mischief which they were instituted to remedy.
The Example of the Duchy of Swabia
The scheme of military coercion is shown by the example of Donauwörth, a free and imperial city of the circle of Swabia, where its leader enjoyed certain immunities which had been reserved to him. In the exercise of these, on some public occasions, outrages were committed on him by the people of the city. The consequence was that the city was put under the ban of the empire, and the Duke of Bavaria, though director of another circle, obtained an appointment to enforce it. He soon appeared before the city with a corps of ten thousand troops, and finding it a fit occasion (as he had secretly intended from the beginning), he revived an antiquated claim, on the pretext that his ancestors had suffered the place to be dismembered from his territory. The duke took possession of the city in his own name, then disarmed and punished the inhabitants, and reannexed the city to his domains.
The Emperor Has Kept Germany Together
One might inquire: What has so long kept this disjointed machine from falling entirely to pieces? The answers are obvious: most of the members are weak and unwilling to expose themselves to the mercy of foreign powers; most of the principal members also are weak in comparison to the formidable powers all around them; the vast weight and influence the emperor derives from his separate and hereditary dominions; and the interest he feels in preserving a system with which his family pride is connected, and which constitutes him the first prince in Europe.
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Foreign nations have long been interested in the events shaping Germany, occasionally even betraying their policy of perpetuating Germany’s anarchy and weakness.
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All these causes support a feeble and precarious union. The principle of competing dual sovereignty continually repels the members from each other, and prevents any reform to be had with a proper consolidation. Even if a local sovereign chose to yield some sovereign powers to a central sovereign, it is unimaginable that the neighboring powers would suffer the revolution to their sovereignty if the empire were give the force and preeminence to which it is entitled.
Foreign nations have long been interested in the events shaping Germany, occasionally even betraying their policy of perpetuating Germany’s anarchy and weakness.
The Example of Poland
If another example were needed of the calamities befalling central governments attempting to control local sovereigns, Poland provides striking proof. This nation has found itself equally unfit for self-government and for self-defense – and long been at the mercy of its powerful neighbors, who recently annexed one third of its people and territories.
The Swiss Confederacy
Sometimes the Swiss cantons are cited as an instance of the stability of a confederacy, although it scarcely amounts to one. They have neither common treasury, common troops (even in war), common coin, common judicatory, nor any other common mark of sovereignty.
The cantons are kept together by a catalogue of unusual circumstances, including the peculiarity of their topographical locations, their individual weakness and insignificancy, and their fear of powerful neighbors. There are few sources of contention among the simple and homogeneous people. They have a joint interest in their dependent possessions, and the mutual aid they offer and require for suppressing insurrections and rebellions. Further, there is need of some regular and permanent provision for accommodating disputes among the cantons.
In such a dispute, the parties at variance each chooses four judges out of the neutral cantons, who (in case of disagreement) choose an umpire. This tribunal – under an oath of impartiality – pronounces a definitive sentence, which all the cantons are bound to enforce.
Whatever efficacy the Swiss union may have had in ordinary cases, it appears the moment a cause of difference sprang up – capable of trying its strength – it failed. The controversies on the subject of religion have in three instances kindled violent and bloody contests and eventually severed the league. Thereafter the Protestant and Catholic cantons have had their separate diets, where all the most important concerns are adjusted, leaving to the general diet little other than commercial proceedings.
The separation of the cantons had another consequence meriting attention: it produced opposite alliances with foreign powers. Bern, at the head of the Protestant association, aligned with the United Provinces, while Lucerne, at the head of the Catholic association, sided with France.
Hamilton with the assistance of Madisonoriginal Federalist 19