Restoration and Regeneration in Switzerland
| Swiss Confederation | ||||||||||
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Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft (de) Confédération suisse (fr) Confederazione Svizzera (it) |
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| Capital | Not specified | |||||||||
| Languages | Swiss French, Swiss German, Swiss Italian, Rhaeto-Romance languages | |||||||||
| Government | Tagsatzung | |||||||||
| History | ||||||||||
| • | First meeting of delegates from all the nineteen cantons at Zurich | 6 April 1814 | ||||||||
| • | Federal Treaty | 7 August 1815 | ||||||||
| • | Sonderbund War | November 1847 | ||||||||
| • | Swiss Federal Constitution | 12 September 1848 | ||||||||
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The periods of Restoration and Regeneration in Swiss history last from 1814 to 1847. "Restoration" refers to the period of 1814 to 1830, the restoration of the Ancien Régime (federalism), reverting the changes imposed by Napoleon Bonaparte on the centralist Helvetic Republic from 1798 and the partial reversion to the old system with the Act of Mediation of 1803. "Regeneration" refers to the period of 1830 to 1848, when in the wake of the July Revolution the "restored" Ancien Régime was countered by the liberal movement. In the Protestant cantons, the rural population enforced liberal cantonal constitutions, partly in armed marches on the cities. This resulted in a conservative backlash in the Catholic cantons in the 1830s, raising the conflict to the point of civil war by 1847.
When Napoleon's fall appeared imminent, the Act of Mediation was suspended in late December 1813, and lengthy discussions about future constitutions were initiated in all cantons of Switzerland.
The Tagsatzung (the gathering of delegates from all the nineteen cantons) which took place between 6 April 1814 and 31 August 1815, the so-called "Long Diet", met at Zurich to replace the constitution. The Diet remained dead-locked until 12 September when Valais, Neuchatel and Geneva were raised to full members of the Confederation. This increased the number of cantons to 22. The Diet, however, made little progress until the Congress of Vienna.
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