The Constitution of 1848
24 January 2022
The Constitution of 1848 marked the beginning of a rapid development of the new Swiss Confederation in almost all areas.
1815-1848
The Confederation of sovereign cantons evolved into a federal state comprising three distinct levels: the federal level, the cantons, and the municipalities.
The principle of sovereign cantons remained unchanged, with one important difference: unless the cantons (and the People) transferred powers to the federal level (see Swiss Spectator, A Brief History of the Constitution and The Cantons).
Until 1848, Switzerland was a predominantly agricultural society with industrial and commercial centres of excellence in publishing, trade, science, chocolate, textiles, watches, machinery, and turbines for ships, as well as an incipient tourism and financial services industry.
However, there was no industrial revolution or railway construction yet. In many (mountainous) regions, there was great poverty. Switzerland was an emigration country, like most European countries.
The country had no unified system of weights, measures, or even the measurement of time. Tolls were levied between the cantons, and the infrastructure was underdeveloped.
Nor did Switzerland have any raw materials (coal, iron ore) with one crucial exception: water and granite, which played an important role after 1848.
There was no political stability, as evidenced by the division of Basel into the cantons Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft (1833), the undeclared civil war in the canton of Valais (between Haut-Valais and Bas-Valais), and the Sonderbundskrieg in 1847.
Monarchies and aristocratic systems surrounded the country. Thousands of political opponents of the Habsburg, the Russian tsar, the French and German kings and dukes acted against them from Swiss soil.
The modernisation and political stability after 1848 were made possible by this Constitution and the existing entrepreneurial and export networks.
Great statesmanship
This Constitution was a masterpiece of statesmanship at the right time and in the right place in a country that, in 1847, had experienced the Sonderbundskrieg, a brief civil war.
The state immediately entered into trade agreements, and entrepreneurs traded with the world. The United Kingdom became one of the most important partners. The Swiss franc was introduced, and tolls between the cantons were abolished, resulting in the country becoming a single internal market.
Railways, chemicals, food, engineering, tourism, financial services, (electrical) engineering and other infrastructural projects changed the country in one generation.
The country was one of the most modern nations in 1875 and was often referred to as a laboratory of progress. The Confederation of 1848 was based on centuries-old political, economic, personal, cultural, and linguistic relationships, exchanges, experiences, and systems. The conditions for modernisation and the Industrial Revolution à la Suisse were already present in 1848; the Constitution was the final touch.
This Constitution was a well-balanced political system and a ‘bottom-up’ creation.
The primary consideration was: what is possible, sustainable, and feasible in this multicultural, multireligious, and multilingual country.
The roles and functions of municipalities, cantons, and the federal level, as well as the two chambers of parliament, democracy, the relationship between business and government, international politics, the organisation and financing of education, hospitals, social systems, and defence, were taken into account.
Direct democracy, federalism, subsidiarity
The strongest assets of the Constitution are direct democracy, federalism, subsidiarity, and the ability to adapt to new societal circumstances, done step by step, but always in consultation and communication with citizens, entrepreneurs, and the cantons, and never as a measure imposed from above, top-down.
Conclusion
The Constitution of 1848 created the foundations for present-day prosperity, political stability, and the will and capacity to reform and change.
Source: J. Jung, Das Laboratorium des Fortschritts. Die Schweiz im 19. Jahrhundert (Basel, 2019).