in the power of the State to determine at will the limits of its own competence or jurisdiction. The distinguishing characteristic of the supreme power was held to be the capacity to mark out independently the metes and bounds of its own activity. Even this doctrine was deemed too positive, however, and there appeared a modification of the idea to the effect that sovereignty consists merely in the power of a community to be legally bound solely through its own will. A State may not be able to extend the bounds of its jurisdiction at pleasure, yet if its acts are all determined by its own will and it cannot be legally bound by the will of another, the possession of sovereignty must, none the less, be conceded. These new doctrines were attended, however, by important changes of view as to the nature of the State. The historic theory that the State and sovereignty are inseparably united was found to be no longer applicable to modern political conditions, and the idea of a nonsovereign State was widely adopted as the easiest way of escape from the difficulties of constitutional and juristic construction presented by federalism.

249. Powers of the imperial government of Germany. The constitution of the German Empire indicates the sphere of federal jurisdiction as follows:

ART. 4. The following matters shall be under the supervision of the Empire and subject to imperial legislation :

(1) Regulations with respect to the freedom of migration; matters of domicile and settlement; citizenship; passports; surveillance of foreigners; trade and industry, including insurance; so far as these matters are not already provided for by Art. 3 of this constitution, in Bavaria, however, exclusive of matters relating to domicile and settlement; and likewise matters relating to colonization and emigration to foreign countries.

(2) Legislation concerning customs duties, commerce, and such taxes as are to be applied to the uses of the Empire.

(3) Regulation of weights and measures; of the coinage; and the establishment of the principles for the issue of funded and unfunded paper money.

(4) General banking regulations.

(5) Patents for inventions.

(6) The protection of intellectual property.

(7) The organization of a general system of protection for German trade in foreign countries, of German navigation, and of the German flag on the high seas; and the establishment of a common consular representation, which shall be maintained by the Empire.

(8) Railway matters, subject in Bavaria to the provisions of Art. 46; and the construction of land and water ways for the purposes of public defense, and of general commerce.

(9) Rafting and navigation upon waterways which are common to several states, the condition of such waterways, river and other water dues [and also the signals of maritime navigation (beacons, buoys, lights, and other signals)].

(10) Postal and telegraph affairs; in Bavaria and Württemberg, however, only in accordance with the provisions of Art. 52.

(11) Regulations concerning the reciprocal execution of judicial sentences in civil matters, and the fulfillment of requisitions in general. (12) The authentication of public documents.

(13) General legislation as to the whole domain of civil and criminal law, and judicial procedure.

(14) The imperial military and naval affairs.

(15) Police regulation of medical and veterinary matters.

(16) Laws relating to the press, and to the right of association.

250. Powers of the federal government of Switzerland. In contrast to the brief and general statement of the powers of the federal government in the United States, the Swiss constitution enumerates the powers of the federal government in elaborate detail.

ARTICLE 8. The Confederation shall have the sole right of declaring war, of making peace, and of concluding alliances and treaties with foreign powers, particularly treaties relating to tariffs and commerce.

...

ARTICLE 14. In case of differences arising between cantons, the states shall abstain from violence and from arming themselves; they shall submit to the decision to be taken upon such differences by the Confederation.

ARTICLE 23. The Confederation may construct at its own expense, or may aid by subsidies, public works which concern Switzerland or a considerable part of the country.

ARTICLE 24. The Confederation shall have the right of superintendence over the police of streams and forests. . .

ARTICLE 25. The Confederation shall have power to make legislative enactments for the regulation of fishing and hunting, particularly with a view to the preservation of the big game in the mountains, as well as for the protection of birds useful to agriculture and forestry.

ARTICLE 26. Legislation upon the construction and operation of railroads is within the province of the Confederation.

ARTICLE 27. The Confederation may establish, besides the existing Polytechnic School, a federal university and other institutions of higher instruction, or may subsidize institutions of such a character. . .

ARTICLE 28. The customs system shall be within the control of the Confederation. The Confederation may levy export and import duties.

ARTICLE 32 (ii). The Confederation is authorized to make regulations, by law, for the manufacture and sale of distilled liquors.

ARTICLE 34. The Confederation shall have power to enact uniform laws as to the labor of children in factories, and as to the length of the working day fixed for adults therein, and as to the protection of laborers engaged in unsanitary and dangerous manufactures. . .

ARTICLE 34 (ii). The Confederation shall by law establish accident and invalid insurance.

ARTICLE 36. The posts and telegraphs in all Switzerland shall be controlled by the Confederation.

ARTICLE 38. The Confederation shall exercise all the exclusive rights pertaining to coinage...

ARTICLE 40. The Confederation shall fix the standard of weights and measures.

ARTICLE 41. The manufacture and sale of gunpowder throughout Switzerland shall belong exclusively to the Confederation. . .

ARTICLE 69. Legislation concerning measures of sanitary police against epidemic and cattle diseases, causing a common danger, is included in the powers of the Confederation.

ARTICLE 69 (ii). The Confederation shall have the power to enact laws:

(a) Concerning traffic in food products.

(b) Concerning traffic in other articles of use and consumption, in so far as they may be dangerous to life or health.

IV. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FEDERAL

GOVERNMENT

251. Advantages of federal organization. Hamilton, writing in the "Federalist," quotes the following arguments from Montesquieu in favor of a "confederate republic.'

It is very probable . . . that mankind would have been obliged, at length, to live constantly under the government of a SINGLE PERSON, had they not contrived a kind of constitution, that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical government. I mean a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC.

This form of government is a convention by which several smaller states agree to become members of a larger one, which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body.

A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruption. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.

If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped, and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.

Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty.

As this government is composed of small republics, it enjoys the internal happiness of each, and with respect to its external situation, it is possessed, by means of the association, of all the advantages of large monarchies.

252. Weaknesses in federal government. Bryce outlines the weak points of the federal system and applies them to the United States.1

The faults generally charged on federations as compared with unified governments are the following:

I. Weakness in the conduct of foreign affairs.

II. Weakness in home government, that is to say, deficient authority over the component States and the individual citizens.

III. Liability to dissolution by the secession or rebellion of States. IV. Liability to division into groups and factions by the formation of separate combinations of the component States.

V. Want of uniformity among the States in legislation and administration.

VI. Trouble, expense, and delay due to the complexity of a double system of legislation and administration.

1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.

The first four of these are all due to the same cause, viz. the existence within one government, which ought to be able to speak and act in the name and with the united strength of the nation, of distinct centers of force, organized political bodies into which part of the nation's strength has flowed, and whose resistance to the will of the majority of the whole nation is likely to be more effective than could be the resistance of individuals, because such bodies have each of them a government, a revenue, a militia, a local patriotism to unite them, whereas individual recalcitrants, however numerous, would be unorganized, and less likely to find a legal standing ground for opposition. The gravity of the first two of the four alleged faults has been exaggerated by most writers, who have assumed on rather scanty grounds that Federal governments are necessarily weak governments. History does not warrant so broad a proposition.

All that can fairly be concluded from the history of the American Union is that Federalism is obliged by the law of its nature to leave in the hands of States powers whose exercise may give to political controversy a peculiarly dangerous form, may impede the assertion of national authority, may even, when long-continued exasperation has suspended or destroyed the feeling of a common patriotism, threaten national unity itself. Against this danger is to be set the fact that the looser structure of a Federal government and the scope it gives for diversities of legislation in different parts of a country may avert sources of discord, or prevent local discord from growing into a contest of national magnitude.

253. Advantages and disadvantages of federal union. Sidgwick estimates the relative value of the arguments for and against the formation of federal union, as follows: 1

Firstly, it enables small independent communities not strongly divided by interests or sentiments, to escape the chief military and economic disadvantages attaching to small states, at the least possible sacrifice of independence. A small state with large and powerful neighbors incurs some danger of high-handed aggression — though the mutual jealousy of the neighbors may often render this remote and vague and it incurs the milder but more certain disadvantage of being obliged to yield in disputes where the question of right is ambiguous. Further, so long as modern states endeavor, by elaborately arranged tariffs, to exclude or hamper the competition of foreign producers in their markets, it will generally be some disadvantage to the members of a 1 By permission of The Macmillan Company.