Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1880

No. 604.
Mr. Fish to Mr. Evarts.

Legation of the United States,
Berne, September 30, 1880. (Received October 21.)

No. 304.]

Sir: In March of last year, Dr. Joos, of Schaffhausen, introduced in the National Council, the following motion:

1. Article 39 of the federal constitution is suppressed and replaced by the following:

2. The confederation alone has the power to issue bank notes or treasury bonds. It cannot, however, decree for them a compulsory circulation.

3. This revised article will be submitted to the popular vote.

4. The Federal Council is charged with the execution of the present decree.

This motion was rejected by the National Council without hesitation and Dr. Joos then set to work to gather the necessary 50,000 signatures to a petition demanding the revision of Article 39.

Article 39, of the federal constitution, is as follows:

The confederation has power to decree by legislative measures general provisions concerning the emission and redemption of bank notes. It cannot, however, create a monopoly for the emission of bank notes, nor decree the obligatory acceptance of those notes.

The article (120) of the federal constitution concerning the method of its revision, is as follows:

When one branch of the Federal Assembly decrees the revision of the federal constitution and the other branch does not agree thereto, or when 50,000 Swiss citizens, having the right to vote, demand the revision, the question Whether the federal constitution should be revised is, in either case, to be submitted to the vote of the Swiss people by ayes and nays.

If in either of these cases the majority of Swiss citizens taking part in the vote, decide in the affirmative, the two councils will be renewed for (the purpose of) working upon the revision.

Dr. Joos and his supporters, in their petition, did not confine them selves to a request for the revision of Article 39, they demanded its revision under Article 120, and that it should be revised in the following manner:

1. Article 39 of the federal constitution is suppressed.

2. It is replaced by the following:

“The confederation alone has the right to issue bank notes or treasury bonds. Nevertheless it cannot decree their compulsory circulation. The profit resulting from the issuing of bank notes or treasury bonds shall be divided between the confederation and the cantons in a proportion to be determined by the law.”

3. This revised article shall be submitted to the popular vote.

4. The Federal Council is charged with the execution of the present decree.

The Federal Council in bringing the demand for revision to the Federal Assembly’s attention, naturally took exception to the petitioner’s right to thus initiate legislation by the popular vote, and also to the restriction of the question to be submitted to popular vote to a single article of the federal constitution, and recommended that the question to be submitted to the popular vote should be: Shall the present federal constitution be revised?

The Federal Assembly met in extra session to consider the petition, and by a very large majority adopted the recommendation of the Federal Council. The latter has published, in the last number of the Feuille Fédérate, the decree of the Assembly and has fixed the 31st October as the day for the popular vote.

There is but little chance that the revisionists will obtain the majority; they will have against them the banking and money interests of the country, the large number of voters who see no benefit in a change, the partisans of cantonal rights, and more numerous and more powerful than all the large number of voters who here, as with us, look with jealous eye upon any alteration in the organic law of the confederation.

I inclose you copies of a letter from Dr. Kern,^* the able and intelligent representative of Switzerland at Paris, and one of the framers of the constitution of 1848, to Mr. Schenk of the Federal Council, giving his views concerning the manner of proceeding to be observed in regard to the petition of Dr Joos, and his supporters. It is a valuable commentary on the provisions of the constitution respecting revision, and the position of its author entitles it to great consideration.

I likewise inclose copies of the message of the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly, and a copy of the decree as voted by the latter.^*

I have, &c.,

NICHOLAS FISH.

1. Omitted from the present publication.
2. Omitted from the present publication.