with the management of the federal affairs in conjunction with other representatives of the Confederation. This representative committee is chosen by six circles of Cantons each in turn. The Diet gives the requisite instructions to these federal representatives, and fixes the duration of their duties, which cease, of course, when there is a new Diet. When this assembly is not in session, the _Vorort_ has the charge of federal affairs within the limits existing before 1798. Cloisters and chapters are allowed to continue, but are subject to taxation like private property; and the Helvetic national debt is acknowledged. The Federal Pact became unpopular not merely from its own intrinsic defects and ambiguities, but also from the time and circumstances of its origin. It was a reactionary instrument, bringing back the yoke of the patrician families and the extreme Ultramontane party. The central authority of the Confederation was wreak. It had no powers, either legislative, executive, or administrative, binding upon the several Cantons; no provision for the repression of wars between rival Cantons, nor for the proper restraint of separate alliances with foreign powers which endangered the peace, if not the independence, of the federal state; no federal army, no public treasury, no national mint, no common judiciary, nor any other common marks of sovereignty. The Diet assembled for little more than deliberation, all matters of importance being referred to the determination of the Cantons. National affairs were discussed in general Diets, as in fact they had been from the beginning, but they were Diets which lacked the very essentials of republican government, majority rule, and power of execution. They depended more upon moral authority than legal powers, persuading where they could not command obedience. The difficulties of a union so obviously imperfect and narrow were greatly increased by the Reformation, which alienated the Catholic and Protestant Cantons, causing political and religious struggles that culminated in civil war. There is then a constitutional rest until the next great revolutionary storm, which swept over so many countries of Europe in 1848, when a new constitution, modelled in many respects after that of the United States, was adopted, and superseded the Federal Pact. It changed the federal union of states into a federal republic; a transition from a _Staatenbund_ to a _Bundesstaat_. The stage of confederation was passed over and the higher state of federation reached; an organized nation, and at the same time the peoples of the particular Cantons also possessing organic unity; a Swiss nation, and yet a Bernese and Genevese people. The Constitution of 1848 was the first which was entirely the work of the Swiss without any foreign influence. For the revolution of 1848, which paralyzed Austria, Rome, and Germany, enabled the Swiss to reassume in full the reins of self-government.