The End of The War
The last member of the Sonderbund, Valais, surrendered on November 29 bringing the war to an end. The federal army had lost 78 men killed and had 260 wounded. Sonderbund losses were even lower.
The Sonderbund governments were forced to resign and in Fribourg, Lucerne and Valais the Liberals gained power. Neuchâtel and Appenzell Innerrhoden were punished for not providing troops to the federal army. Neuchâtel paid 300,000 francs and Appenzell paid 15,000 into a fund to support war widows and orphans. By February 1848 all federal troops withdrew from the occupied cantons.
In Schwyz the conservative government was dissolved and a new provisional government and constitution established. The first attempt at a constitution, which split the district of Schwyz in two and moved the cantonal capital away from Schwyz, was narrowly defeated on 27 January 1848. The second constitution, which removed the mentioned points and merged the former districts of Wollerau and Pfäffikon in the district of March, was then approved by the electorate on 27 February 1848. The new constitution of 1848 reformed the government of the Canton. Perhaps the greatest change was that it abolished the Landsgemeinde, which had formerly been the supreme authority. It split the government into three branches, legislature, executive and judiciary and created a three-tier structure of municipalities, districts and canton. It created proportional representation and allowed the population to vote on laws and constitutional amendments.
Read more about this topic: Sonderbund War
Famous quotes containing the words the end of, the and/or war:
“Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The idea that information can be stored in a changing world without an overwhelming depreciation of its value is false. It is scarcely less false than the more plausible claim that after a war we may take our existing weapons, fill their barrels with cylinder oil, and coat their outsides with sprayed rubber film, and let them statically await the next emergency.”
—Norbert Wiener (1894–1964)