Previously to the recent changes, there were twenty-two cantons; a number that the recent secession of Neufchatel has reduced to twenty-one.[43] Until the French revolution, the number was not so great, many of the present cantons being then associated less intimately with the confederation, as allies, and some of them being held as political dependents, by those that were cantons.  Thus Vaud and Argovie were both provinces, owned and ruled by Berne.

[Footnote 43:  Berne, Soleure, Zurich, Lucerne, Schweitz, Unterwalden, Uri, Glarus, Tessino, Valais, Vaud, Geneva, Basle, Schaffhausen, Argovie, Thourgovie, Zug, Fribourg, St. Gall, Appenzell, and the Grisons.  They are named here without reference to their rank or antiquity.]

The system is that of a confederation, which leaves each of its members to do pretty much as it pleases, in regard to its internal affairs.  The central government is conducted by a Diet, very much as our affairs were formerly managed by the old Congress.  In this Diet, each canton has one vote.  The executive power, such as it is, is wielded by a committee or council.  Its duties do not extend much beyond being the organ of communication between the Diet and the Cantons, the care of the treasury (no great matter), and the reception of, and the treating with, foreign ministers.  The latter duty, however, and indeed all other acts, are subject to a revision by the Diet.

Although the cantons themselves are only known to the confederation as they are enrolled on its list, many of them are subdivided into local governments that are perfectly independent of each other.  Thus there are two Unterwaldens in fact, though only one in the Diet; two Appenzells, also; and I may add, half a dozen Grisons and Valais.  In other words, the two Unterwaldens are absolutely independent of each other, except as they are connected through the confederation, though they unite to choose common delegates to the Diet, in which they are known as only one canton, and possess but one vote.  The same is true of Appenzell, and will soon, most probably, be true of Schweitz and Basle; in both of which there are, at this moment, serious dissensions that are likely to lead to internal separations.[44] The Grisons is more of a consolidated canton than these examples, but it is subdivided into leagues, which have a good many strong features of independence.  The same is true of Valais, where the subdivisions are termed dizains.  The Diet does little beyond controlling the foreign relations of the republic.  It makes peace and war, receives ambassadors, forms treaties, and enters into alliances.  It can only raise armies, however, by calling on the cantons for their prescribed contingents.  The same is true as respects taxes.  This, you will perceive, is very much like our own rejected confederation, and has most of its evils; though external pressure, and a trifling commerce, render them less here than they