4 to 13,796;[594] and the primary fact of (p. 412)
the Swiss governmental system is the remarkable measure of political
independence which these divisions, small as well as large, possess.

[Footnote 593: Dodd, Modern Constitutions, II.,
257.]

[Footnote 594: The total area of the Confederation
is approximately 16,000 square miles; the total
population, according to the census of December 1,
1910, is 3,741,971.]

*454. The Sovereignty of the Cantons.*--In the United States there was
throughout a prolonged period a fundamental difference of opinion
relative to the sovereignty of the individual states composing the
Union. The Constitution contains no explicit affirmation upon the
subject, and views maintained by nationalists and state right's
advocates alike have always been determined of necessity by
interpretation of history and of public law. In Switzerland, on the
contrary, there is, upon the main issue, no room for doubt. "The
cantons are sovereign," asserts the constitution, "so far as their
sovereignty is not limited by the federal constitution; and, as such,
they exercise all the rights which are not delegated to the federal
government."[595] As in the United States, the federal government is
restricted to the exercise of powers that are delegated, while the
federated states are free to exercise any that are not delegated
exclusively to the nation, nor prohibited to the states. In the Swiss
constitution, however, the delimitation of powers, especially those of
a legislative character, is so much more minute than in the American
instrument that comparatively little room is left for difference of
opinion as to what is and what is not "delegated."[596]

[Footnote 595: Art. 3. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 257.]

[Footnote 596: In the form in which it now exists
the Swiss constitution is one of the most
comprehensive instruments of the kind in existence.
Aside from various temporary provisions, it
contains, in all, 123 articles, some of
considerable length. As is true of the German
constitution, there is in it much that ordinarily
has no place in the fundamental law of a nation. A
curious i