62 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE CS^O 



We, the deputies and representatives of the free states of the 

 former bishopric of Basel, fief of the German Empire, united in the 

 National Assembly, under the protection of the French Republic. . . . 



Considering that the Constitution and the laws of the Germanic 

 Empire are not the result of the general will of the peoples who 

 compose the empire, but of the princes . . . who by usurpation have 

 appropriated various authorities over the peoples forming said na- 

 tion, contrary to the incontestable . . . right of sovereignty which 

 radicalemcut resides in the people. . . . 



Considering that the government of the bishops of Basel, who by 

 an abuse absolutely contrary to the maxims of the Gospel, com- 

 bined temporal power with their spiritual office in accepting the 

 lands and seigneuries of their bishoprics with the exercise of sover- 

 eignty over the inhabitants in fief from the Emperor and the em- 

 pire, was an arbitrary' and despotic regime. . . . 



Considering further that the public treaties and even the decrees 

 of the highest courts of the empire, notably the imperial judgrment 

 of Vienna of 1736, regulating the fundamental constitution of the 

 land, that the whole body of reciprocal rights and duties between 

 princes and people, far from having been respected by the princes, 

 have always been violated when they stood in favor of the people 

 and that the people's reclamations have always been rejected with 

 scorn and contempt. 



Considering that the griefs of the people and the objects of its 

 grievances have multiplied in proportion to the barbaric and tyran- 

 nical treatment which the bishop princes accorded the inhabitants 

 of the bishoprics, especially in the case of hunting, the administra- 

 tion of communal forests, the repair and maintenance of public 

 roads, the traffic in salt, etc. . . . 



Having considered all this we . . . declare, in the face of Heaven 

 and Earth, that all the ties which attach us to the Emperor and the 

 German Empire, as well as to the bishops of Basel and to their 

 Chapter, are broken, we swear never to renew them. . . .-^ 



The Assembly of the Republic of Raiiracie — this was the 

 name assumed by the former bishopric of Basel — formu- 

 lated and passed this resolution while under occupation by 

 French troops.^* After the adoption of the resolution the 

 Assembly sent a deputation to citizen Frangois Demars, 

 commandant of the French military in the Republic of 

 Rauracie, to acquaint him with the constitution of the new 

 republic and to request of him the execution of the decree 

 of Nov. 19, 1792; that is, to ask of him the fraternal aid 

 promised by revolutionary France.'" 



The French Provisional Fxecutive Council took cogni- 

 zance of the revolution of the Republic of Rauracie and of 



28 For complete text see Martens, vol, vi, pp. 426-430. 



2* Ibid., p. 430. 



"Ibid. 



