Not until 1833, was there any project of reform in Switzerland looking to a special federal executive, apart from all the cantonal governments. Previously, the federal executive authority was not vested in any special magistrate or council, but exercised by the council of one or the other of the three directing Cantons, as explained in the “Introduction.” This had of course the inconvenience, among many others, of causing the employment of federal authority to be more or less guided by the politics actually prevalent in each of the three directing Cantons. Up to 1848, the legislative and executive power were vested in the same body. Switzerland, in its federal character, having never known a personal head of any kind, when the old weak Diet was changed into a real federal government, it naturally limited the executive power far more than it is limited in the United States; and the powers left to the executive were no less naturally intrusted, not to a President, but to a council. Unwilling to trust the executive power to any single man, it was placed in the hands of a council of seven. It may be called an impersonal executive. There is nothing about it to invite the homage of those whose chief object it is to find something to abase themselves before; its walks cannot be recorded in a court circular; it holds no drawing-rooms or levées; it pays no one the honor of a visit, and no one has the honor of being invited to visit it in return. A legislature chosen for a fixed term, which cannot be dissolved before the end of that term, chooses an Executive Council, for the term of its own existence. To such a body no scrap or rag of royal purple can hang; and it completely refutes the notion that the executive power of a republic is simply a shadow of kingship, a mere transfer from a life and hereditary tenure to an elected and limited term. The organization, powers, and duties of the Federal Council are defined by the constitution in the following provisions: 1. The supreme direction and executive authority of the Confederation shall be a Federal Council, consisting of seven members. 2. The members of the Federal Council are chosen by the Federal Assembly for the term of three years, from among all Swiss citizens eligible to the National Council. But not more than one member shall be chosen from the same Canton. After every general election for the National Council, the Federal Council shall also be integrally renewed. Vacancies which occur in the course of the three years are filled, for the rest of the term, at the ensuing session of the Federal Assembly. 3. The members of the Federal Council shall not during their term of office hold any other office, either in the service of the Confederation or of a Canton, or follow any other pursuit, or exercise a profession.