sends one member (named by the
_Landsgemeinde_) to the federal _Standerath_, and one also to the
federal _Nationalrath_, while it forms but a single administrative
district, though divided into six communes.

To the outer world the canton of Appenzell is best known by its
institution of _Landsgemeinden_, or primitive democratic assemblies held
in the open air, in which every male citizen (not being disqualified)
over twenty years of age must (under a money penalty) appear personally:
each half-canton has such an assembly of its own, that of Inner Rhoden
always meeting at Appenzell, and that of Ausser Rhoden in the odd years
at Hundwil (near Herisau) and in the even years at Trogen. This
institution is of immemorial antiquity, and the meetings in either case
are always held on the last Sunday in April. The _Landsgemeinde_ is the
supreme legislative authority, and elects both the executive (in Inner
Rhoden composed of nine members and called _Standeskommission_, and in
Ausser Rhoden of seven members and called _Regierungsrath_) and the
president or _Landammann_; in each half-canton there is also a sort of
standing committee (composed of the members of the executive and
representatives from the communes--in Inner Rhoden one member per 250 or
fraction over 125 of the population, and in Ausser Rhoden one member per
1000 of the inhabitants) which prepares business for the _Landsgemeinde_
and decides minor matters; in Inner Rhoden it is named the _Grossrath_
and in Ausser Rhoden the _Kantonsrath_. As various old-fashioned
ceremonies are observed at the meetings and the members each appear with
his girded sword, the sight of a meeting of the _Landsgemeinde_ is most
striking and interesting. The existing constitution of Inner Rhoden
dates mainly from 1872, and that of Ausser Rhoden from 1876.

By the middle of the 11th century the abbots of St Gall had established
their power in the land later called Appenzell, which, too, became
thoroughly teutonized, its early inhabitants having probably been
romanized Raetians. But as early as 1377, this portion of the abbots'
domains formed an alliance with the Swabian free imperial cities and
adopted a constitution of its own. The repeated attempts of the abbots
to put down this independence of their rule were defeated in the
battles of Vogelinsegg (1403), north-west of Trogen, and of the Stoss
(1405), the pass leading from Gais over to Altstatten in the Rhine
valley. In 1411 Appenzell wa