esident). A principle adhered to by the
cantonal governments generally is that in the work of local
administration the largest possible use shall be made of the mayors of
towns, the headmen of villages, and other minor local dignitaries.[615]

[Footnote 615: Vincent, Government in Switzerland,
Chap. 10; Adams and Cunningham, The Swiss
Confederation, Chap. 8; Lloyd, A Sovereign People,
Chap. 3.]

*466. Justice.*--Each canton has a judicial system which is essentially
complete within itself. Judges are elected by the people. The
hierarchy of civil tribunals--the Vermittler, or justice of the peace,
the Bezirksgericht, or district court, and the Kantonsgericht--is
paralleled by a hierarchy of courts for the trial of criminal cases, a
special committee or chamber of the Kantonsgericht serving as the
criminal court of last resort. Only in few and wholly exceptional
instances may appeal be carried from a cantonal to a federal tribunal.

CHAPTER XXIII (p. 423)

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

I. THE EXECUTIVE

*467. The Federal Council: the President.*--At the framing of the Swiss
constitution, as at that of the American, there arose the question of
a single or a plural executive. In the United States the disadvantages
assumed to be inherent in an executive which should consist of a
number of persons who were neither individually responsible nor likely
to be altogether harmonious determined a decision in favor of a single
president. In Switzerland, on the other hand, the cantonal tradition
of a collegiate executive, combined with an exaggerated fear of the
concentration of power, determined resort to the other alternative.
There is a president of the Swiss Confederation. But, as will appear,
his status is altogether different from that of the President of the
United States, and likewise from that of the President of France. The
Swiss executive consists rather of a Bundesrath, or Federal Council,
in which the President is little more than chairman.

"The supreme directive and executive authority of the Confederation,"
says the constitution, "shall be exercised by a Federal Council,
composed of seven members."[616] The members of the Federal Council
are elected by the Federal Assembly, i.e., the National Council and
the Council of the States in joint session, from among all citizens
eligible to