History of the Canton of Bern

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The History of the Canton of Bern deals with the history of today's Canton of Bern, which emerged as one of the legal successors of the City and Republic of Bern as a result of the mediation act of 1803 .

Mediation and restoration

After the unified Helvetian republic perished in the Stecklik War in 1802 , the mediation act of 1803 maintained the independence of Vaud and Aargau, but reunited the Oberland with Bern and gave the canton, which before 1798 was an aggregate of the most diverse components with diverse local and particular rights had been its present unit.

Karl Ludwig von Haller

On December 23, 1813, under pressure from Austria, the government declared the mediation constitution to be repealed and placed its power in the hands of the patrician council of 1798, which immediately sought to assert its sovereignty over Vaud and Aargau. These claims alone failed because of the determined resistance of those cantons and the understanding of the powers that be. In contrast, Bern received most of the former Principality of Basel ( Bernese Jura ) as compensation from the Congress of Vienna . Inside, the old constitution was established with the tempering that the citizenship of the city was opened and added to the rate of two hundred and ninety-nine representatives of the countryside (September 21, 1815). The restoration period, named after a work by the Bernese political scientist Karl Ludwig von Haller , began .

The Liberal Constitution of 1831

Emanuel Friedrich von Fischer

The July Revolution of 1830 also gave Bern the impetus for the democratic reorganization of the state. At the stormy request of a people's assembly held in Münsingen on January 10, 1831 , the Great Council under the last mayor, Emanuel Friedrich von Fischer, appointed a constitutional council of 240 members, which was elected by the population according to the population and presided over by the well-known pedagogue Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg has been. The new constitution, adopted on July 31, abolished the city's prerogatives entirely and stipulated proportional representation in the Grand Council, which, however, was elected indirectly by electors. The overthrown patricians for a time carried themselves with plans for a violent overthrow, the discovery of which in August 1832 brought about a process which completely broke their influence.

Radical liberalism

The University of Bern was founded in 1834 . Bern's accession to the resolutions of the Baden Conference caused a violent ferment in the Catholic Jura in 1836, which was fueled by France and led to the withdrawal of the Baden articles. Gradually a radical opposition emerged against the liberal government led by the Schnell brothers from Burgdorf and later by Karl Neuhaus , under the influence of the German refugees Ludwig Snell and Wilhelm Snell who were active at the university , which in 1846 brought about a revision of the Basic Law.

The new constitution, adopted on July 31, 1846, abolished the indirect electoral system including the last electoral restrictions, reduced the number of members of the government from 17 to 9, gave the people the right to recall the Grand Council, instituted jury courts and saw the ransom of the tithe and land rates before. The leaders of the radicals, the free army leader Ulrich Ochsenbein and Jakob Stämpfli , Wilhelm Snell's son-in-law, joined the new government . The pastor and writer Albert Bitzius alias Jeremias Gotthelf was a fierce opponent of the radicals .

Federal city

Eduard Blösch

On November 28, 1848, Bern was made a federal city . In the meantime, a large conservative party had formed against the radicals, which won the upper hand in the elections in May 1850 and the government with its heads, Eduard Blösch , Bendicht Straub and others. a., occupied. The reactionary steps of the conservatives (removal of free-minded teachers, enactment of a strict press law) resulted in radicals and conservatives balancing each other in the Grand Council elections as early as 1854, whereupon the leaders of both parties were elected into government through a compromise. In the later new elections, the conservative party became weaker and weaker and in the end it was completely pushed out of the government, whereupon its creations, e.g. B. the press law etc., fell.

The constitutional reform of 1869 and the Kulturkampf

A partial revision approved by the people on July 4, 1869, introduced the mandatory referendum on laws, major expenditure and the four-year budget. The canton of Bern was particularly affected by the Kulturkampf that broke out in Switzerland in 1872. When the government forbade the canton's Catholic clergy from any intercourse with Bishop Eugène Lachat after the removal from office , 97 clergymen from the Jura, the Catholic part of Bern, resigned their obedience in a letter to the government, whereupon they, insofar as they hold parish positions clothed, were appalled by the courts (September 1873).

At the same time, a church law, which was adopted by the people on January 18, 1874 with approx. 70,000 against 17,000 votes, regulated the relationship between state and church, so that civil status , marriage and burial were civically organized, the parish elections were delegated to the parishes and, as the highest, church elections Authority for both denominations, the cantonal synods were established and each episcopal jurisdiction depended on the approval of the government.

Since only the Old Catholics submitted to the provisions of this law, while the Roman Catholics declared that they could never accept the same, all national church privileges, state salaries, churches, parsonages and church assets were transferred to the Old Catholic Church, now called the Christian Catholic Church, while themselves saw the Roman Catholics pushed into the position of a private association. A Catholic theological faculty was set up at the University of Bern in November 1874, which was supposed to serve non-teaching research and the implementation of Old Catholicism.

The unrest in the Jura was suppressed by the military and the deposed clergy were expelled from the Jurassic districts because of their agitation. However, since the Federal Council, following the appeal of the persons concerned, declared this deportation illegal and the Federal Assembly approved it, the Bernese government had to withdraw the deportation decree on November 6, 1875; but previously secured himself against new riots through the Kultuspolizeigesetz of September 14th.

Since, however, the subsidization of the Jura and Bern-Lucerne railways , the repurchase of the latter when it went bankrupt (January 1877), as well as other significant expenses piled the state with debts and the state accounts showed significant deficits year after year, dissatisfaction arose among the people against the ruling personalities, and on August 27, 1877, the same refused to approve the four-year budget.

Albert Bitzius (1835–1882)

In the new elections to the Grand Council at the end of May 1878, the radical party retained the upper hand, but the government was almost completely re-appointed. a. by Jeremias Gotthelf's son Albert Bitzius junior . At the same time, ecclesiastical affairs entered a new phase in that the Roman Catholics submitted to the law of worship, whereas the Grand Council declared the deposed clergy to be eligible for re-election. In March 1879, the ultramontanes took part in the renewal elections for the clergy and won in many parishes, but the government ensured that the Old Catholic minorities would share the churches.

To order the finances, the Grand Council passed a stamp tax law and a law on the simplification of the state budget, which the people approved on May 2, 1880, although the latter withdrew their previous right to approve the budget. This, as well as a favorable conversion of the national debt, enabled the new government to close the era of the deficit.

The failed constitutional revision of 1885

The downward trend that had been noticeable throughout Switzerland for some time encouraged the Bernese conservatives to attack the liberal-radical regiment again in 1883. They constituted themselves as a so-called People's Party, seized the question of a revision of the constitution of 1846, which had been pending for years, and collected the signatures necessary to demand a referendum. Since the radical spokesmen and organs are now also speaking out in favor of the revision, the same was passed in the referendum of June 3rd with a large majority and transferred to a special constitutional council.

The elections for this turned out to the disadvantage of the People's Party, as two thirds of the elected belonged to the radicals. The Constitutional Council, which u. a. the pastor Gottfried Strasser from Grindelwald , began his work on September 3, 1883 and finished it on November 28, 1884. The new Basic Law was supposed to bring about reforms in the community and poor affairs and determined the income from civil property, which until then had been exclusively the corporations of the Citizen communities benefited, for the needs of the community as a whole, but was rejected by the people on March 1, 1885 with 55,612 against 31,547 votes.

From 1893 to the present

In 1893 a new state constitution was adopted. With the construction of the Hagneck river power station , the electrification by Bernische Kraftwerke AG began in 1898 , and the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway began operating in 1913 with the opening of the Lötschberg tunnel . Technical progress was celebrated in Bern in 1914 with the Swiss National Exhibition .

On November 24, 1917, Rudolf Minger proposed the establishment of a farmers' party in Bierhübeli . This took place in 1918 under the name of farmers, trade and citizens' party (BGB). The forerunner of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) benefited from the proportional representation system that was introduced soon after , which was first used in the elections to the cantonal parliament in 1922, and was then the actual Bernese state party for decades.

It was not until 1968, a few years before national women's suffrage was introduced on February 7, 1971, that women's suffrage was introduced at community level; cantonal voting rights followed on December 12, 1971. After several plebiscites in the 1970s, the canton of Jura was separated in 1979 . In 1994 the Laufental moved to the canton of Basel-Landschaft and in 1996 the municipality of Vellerat to the canton of Jura.

In 1984 the canton was shaken by a financial affair triggered by the auditor Rudolf Hafner . In the wake of the subsequent upheavals in the political landscape, Leni Robert became the first woman in the government council in 1986 , and on January 1, 1995, a new cantonal constitution came into force.

In 1962 the first motorway section was opened, namely the section of the A1 between Bern and Schönbühl , the second Jura water correction was carried out from 1962 to 1973 (the first was from 1868 to 1891), in 1972 the Mühleberg nuclear power plant went into operation and in 1999 with the construction of the Lötschberg -Base tunnel of the new NEAT rail link through the Alps started, which went into operation in 2007.

literature

  • Bibliography of Bern History (BBG) , published by the University Library of Bern with the support of the Civic Community of Bern since 1975, since 1995 the bibliography has been part of the IDS Basel / Bern library catalog.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See "Intelligence Gazette for the City of Bern" , May 6, 1922, p. 1.

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