fferent state governments of America. Each differs, in some respect,
from all the others; and there are so many of them in both cases, as to
make it a subject proper only for regular treatises. I shall therefore
confine the remarks I have to make on this subject to a few general
facts.

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