Sonderbund
The Sonderbund was a defense alliance of the seven Catholic Swiss cantons of Lucerne , Uri , Schwyz , Unterwalden , Zug , Friborg and Wallis and existed from 1845 to 1847.
prehistory
In the regeneration years 1830–31, eleven cantons had reformed their constitution to a liberal - representative one . The next liberal goal was the revision of the federal treaty of 1815. After the Restoration, this led to constitutional struggles between the liberal radicals and the conservatives and, in 1832, to the formation of the first two non-denominational special alliances, the Seven Concordat and the Sarnerbund . Due to the Aargau monastery dispute (1841–43) and the Jesuit question, the appointment of Jesuits to Lucerne by the ruraldemocratic circles around Josef Leu , the contrasts were intensified and also got a denominational dimension.
In the new Lucerne canton constitution of 1841 , the urban liberals, under pressure from the rural-conservative democrats, agreed to a compromise with which the previously democratic-representative Free State - as one of the first Swiss cantons - became a modern direct-democratic one in which popular sovereignty and the will of the people represented the highest law. The direct trigger for the establishment of the Sonderbund in 1845 were the two free marches of volunteers from Bern and Aargau against the canton of Lucerne in order to put a liberal government into power there.
Sonderbund
The Sonderbund founded on December 11, 1845 in Lucerne, as a so-called protection association, was intended to defend the interests of the Catholic, rural, conservative and federalist , direct-democratic cantons against the increasing influence of urban, Protestant and liberal forces, which were a stronger unity of the state union in Switzerland Striving towards the state . A war council was formed with one member of the seven cantons each, which could raise troops for defense and dispose of them. The Lucerne government councilor Constantin Siegwart-Müller became president of the war council and the Lucerne state secretary Bernhard Meyer became secretaryelected. The necessity of the alliance was explained to the people of the seven estates with the defense of the Catholic religion and the protection of the "ancient freedoms". Representatives of the Sonderbund traveled to Paris , Turin and Vienna to negotiate to safeguard Catholic-conservative interests .
The establishment of the Sonderbund intensified the conflict between the liberal and conservative forces in Switzerland considerably, as it awakened memories of earlier Catholic special alliances such as the Golden or Borromean Bund . In addition, according to Paragraph 6 of the Federal Treaty of 1815, the formation of alliances among the cantons to the detriment of other cantons was prohibited: § 6. No connections should be concluded between the individual cantons, the general federation or the rights of other cantons . Once the existence and content of the initially secret alliance held was known Zurich applied for in the summer of 1846 in the Dietto declare the Sonderbund dissolved in accordance with the federal treaty. However, the motion only received the required majority of the cantons' votes after the Liberal Party came to power in Geneva and St. Gallen in July 1847 . In addition, a revision of the federal treaty and the expulsion of the Jesuit order from Switzerland were decided.
The seven Sonderbund cantons hoped for military support from Austria , which was also conservative, and allowed the conflict to escalate. Therefore, on November 4, 1847, the Diet of Bern decided to use force of arms. The Sonderbund War of 1847 ended with the defeat of the conservative cantons and the dissolution of the Sonderbund. Intervention by foreign powers was prevented by the internal problems in the leading conservative states of Austria and Prussia. The famine in the winter of 1847 ( potato revolution in Berlin) and the burgeoning political unrest that led to the March revolution in 1848 should be mentioned.
Web links
- René Roca: Sonderbund. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .