680 Chapter XXVIII
older conception reflected a dislike for government itself, so far as it was distant, or
possessed of significant powers, or conducted by strangers.
The point is illustrated by a letter to Ochs from K. H. Gschwend, landespräsi-
dent of the upper Rheinthal, protesting against the new order. (That much the
same letter could have been written in America should be evident.) Ochs, said
Gschwend, “does not understand the democratic cantons.” For centuries they have
chosen their own officers “under the open sky.” In each canton there is a simple
folk whose combined wealth is less than a Basel burgher’s. “Where will people find
the money to pay for a Directory, two Councils, a Supreme Court, cantonal judges,
a standing army and a host of secretaries and clerks?” A despot would be no worse.
“Our people have never paid taxes. They will be crushed to the ground if so many
taxes are levied now.” All these government functionaries will become a new aris-
tocracy. “Do you suppose that free people, sons of the Alps, will bow under such a
yoke?”^22
It is clear that when the Helvetic constitution, the only constitution of the pe-
riod to do so, explicitly affirmed the new regime to be a “representative democ-
racy,” its purpose was to counter the arguments for direct democracy which could
be expected from parts of Switzerland. Robespierre, five years before, had likewise
upheld representative democracy against the direct democracy of Paris sans-
culottes in their local clubs and assemblies. To insist upon representative democ-
racy was to insist upon the authority of a central government, without which no
revolution could be made to prevail against its opponents, or any reforms carried
out in practice.
The constitution, out of consideration for the small “primitive” cantons, de-
parted from the generally accepted new principle of representation according to
numbers and gave equal representation in the legislative councils, for the immedi-
ate future, to the small and large cantons alike. Thus Zug with 20,000 inhabitants
had as many representatives as Zurich with over 150,000. In the small cantons
there seem, to be sure, to have been a few persons open to modern ideas—“too
many false brothers and evil- minded new- fangled people,” as one observer ex-
pressed it.^23 On the whole, despite the concessions made to them, the small cantons
detested the new Helvetic Republic, disliking the thought of subordination to any
government beyond their own mountains. They called the constitution the Höl-
lenbuchlein—the little hell- book—because, in the words of the community of Nid-
walden, “it seeks to rob us of our holy religion, our freedom enjoyed undisturbed
for hundreds of years, and our democratic constitution inherited from our blessed
ancestors.”^24
The democratic cantons therefore rebelled. The new democratic Republic found
itself in the awkward posture of repressing, by force of arms, little groups of simple
people who insisted that theirs was the truly democratic way of life. The situation
was much relished by the Swiss émigrés, and by the Austrians and the British, all
of whom did what they could to prolong it. On the other hand, it was only to the
22 Strickler, Actensammlung, I, 530.
23 A Catholic priest of Schwyz, J. T. Fassbind, in Ochs, Korrespondenz, II, 622.
24 Strickler, Actensammlung, I, 608–9.