unds), is
not endangered in this property through the votes of non-participant
newcomers. Nor are educational affairs mixed with general politics. And,
though State and religion are not yet severed, each form of belief is
largely left to itself; in some cantons provision is made that a
citizen's taxes shall not go toward the support of a religion to which
he is opposed.

_Organization of Canton and Confederation._

In no canton in Switzerland is there more than one legislative body: in
none is there a senate. The cities of Switzerland have no mayor, the
cantons have no governor, and, if the title be used in the American
sense, the republic has no President. Instead of the usual single
executive head, the Swiss employ an executive council. Hence, in every
canton a deadlock in legislation is impossible, the way is open for all
law demanded by a majority, and neither in canton nor Confederation is
one-man power known.

The cantonal legislature is the Grand Council. "In the Landsgemeinde
cantons and those having the obligatory Referendum, it is little more
than a supervisory committee, preparing measures for the vote of the
citizens and acting as a check on the cantonal executive council. In the
remaining cantons (those having the optional Referendum), the
legislature has the power to spend money below a specified limit; to
enact laws of specified kinds, usually not of general application; and
to elect the more important officials, the amount of discretion [in the
different cantons] rising gradually till the complete representative
government is reached"[G] in Freiburg, which resembles one of our
states. Though in several cantons the Grand Council meets every two
months for a few days' session, in most of the cantons it meets twice a
year. The pay of members ranges from sixty cents to $1.20 per day. The
legislative bodies are large; the ratio in five cantons is one
legislator to every 1,000 inhabitants; in twelve it ranges from one to
187 up to one to 800, and in the remaining five from one to 1,000 to one
to 2,000. The Landsgemeinde cantons usually have fifty to sixty members;
Geneva, with 20,000 voters, has a hundred.

[Footnote G: Vincent.]

In six of the twenty-two cantons, if a certain number of voters petition
for it, the question must be submitted to the people whether or not the
legislature shall be recalled and a new one elected.

The formation of the Swiss Federal Assembly (congress), established in
1848