The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three YearsMaurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
History
The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years
Maurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
Europe -- History -- 1848-1849; Revolutions -- Europe
The cantons which entered into this concordat were Bern, Zurich,
Luzern, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Aargau, and Thurgau. This league
was considered by its opponents to be a violation of the Swiss
Confederation, though the champions of it would probably have pleaded
its purely defensive character. But the Roman Catholic party felt
themselves justified in retaliation; and they formed, in November,
1832, an opposition league called the Sarnerbund. This Bund steadily
set itself to oppose reform; but the men of Schwytz, who were at that
time its leading spirits, did not confine themselves to argument, but
invaded Luzern in 1833. Thereupon the Diet interfered, occupied
Schwytz, and dissolved the Sarnerbund. The reforming party now began
to spread their ideas, and the new University of Zurich, which was
founded at this time, became a fresh centre of intellectual life. The
fugitives from other countries gathered more and more to Switzerland,
and the excitement roused in that country by Mazzini's expedition to
Savoy led to the foundation of a society called Young Europe.
The great object to which the reforming party in Switzerland now
devoted its attention was the breaking down of the authority of the
clergy, and the placing education and marriage under the State instead
of under the Church. Their scheme was embodied in fourteen articles
which excited the indignation of the Roman Catholic cantons; on the
appeal of the Roman Catholics to Gregory XVI., he declared these
articles heretical; and a little later Louis Philippe intervened to
prevent the canton of Bern from enforcing them in the Roman Catholic
district of the Jura.
The struggle had now risen to great bitterness; and, at this period,
the bitterness was much intensified by the domestic character of the
quarrel. The Radical party and the Roman Catholic party struggled
fiercely against each other in several of the cantons; and there were
changes in the government, backwards and forwards, which temporarily
affected the contest. The two changes, however, which were of a
permanent character, and which had a vital effect on the destinies of
Switzerland, were that which took place in 1838 in Bern and that in
Luzern in 1841. Bern, though reckoned, on the whole, among the
Liberal cantons, in consequence of its undoubted Protestantism, was
yet under the control of a timid and moderate party. This may have
arisen from the fact of its important position in the Confederation;
for though Bern divided at this time with Luzern and Zurich the honour
of being the meeting-place of the Diet, yet it seems to have assumed,
even at this period, a certain superior and initiative tone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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