COMPOUND POLITICAL HEADS. 209 



while the Frisians, who, after centuries of resistance to the Franks, 

 were obliged to yield and render small tributary services, retained 

 their internal autonomy. They formed " a confederation of rude but 

 self -governed maritime provinces," each of these seven provinces be- 

 ing divided into districts severally governed by elective heads with 

 their councils, and the whole being under a general elective head and 

 a general council. 



Of illustrations which modern times have furnished, must be named 

 those which again show us the effects of a mountainous region. The 

 most notable is, of course, that of Switzerland. Surrounded by for- 

 ests, " among marshes and rocks and glaciers, tribes of scattered shep- 

 herds had, from the early times of, the Roman conquest, found a land 

 of refuge from the successive invaders of the rest of Helvetia." In 

 the labyrinths of the Alps, accessible to those only who knew the ways 

 to them, their cattle fed unseen ; and against straggling bands of 

 marauders who might discover their retreats they had great facilities 

 for defense. These districts which eventually became the cantons 

 of Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden, originally having but one common 

 center of meeting, but eventually, as population increased, getting 

 three, and forming separate j^olitical organizations long preserved 

 complete independence. With the spread of feudal subordination 

 throughout Europe, they became nominally subject to the Emperor ; 

 but, refusing obedience to the superiors set over them, they entered 

 into a solemn alliance, renewed from time to time, to resist outer ene- 

 mies. Details of their history need not detain us. The fact of mo- 

 ment is, that in these three cantons, which physically favored in so 

 great a degree the maintenance of independence by individuals and 

 by groups, the people, while framing for themselves free governments, 

 united on equal terms for joint defense. And it was these typical 

 " Swiss," as they were the first to be called, whose union formed the 

 nucleus of the larger unions which, through varied fortunes, eventually 

 grew up. Severally independent as were the cantons composing these 

 larger unions, there at first existed feuds among them, which were 

 suspended during the needs for joint defense. Only gradually did 

 the leagues pass from temporary and unsettled forms to a permanent 

 and settled form. Two facts of significance should be added. One 

 is that, at a later date, a like process of resistance, federation, and 

 emancipation from feudal tyranny, among separate communities occu- 

 pying small mountain-valleys, took place in the Orisons and in the 

 Valais regions which, though mountainous, were more accessible 

 than those of the Oberland and its vicinity. The other is that the 

 more level cantons neither so early nor so comj^letely gained their 

 independence ; and, further, that their internal constitutions were less 

 free in form. A marked contrast existed between the aristocratic re- 

 publics of Berne, Lucerne, Fribourg, and Soleure and the pure democ- 

 racies of the forest cantons and the Orisons ; in the last of which 



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