Bern

Bern is presented as the leading canton of the Protestant association formed after religious conflict divided the Swiss confederacy. Its place in the argument is comparative: the separation of the cantons weakened their common political framework and drew the rival associations into opposing foreign alliances, offering a warning about the instability of unions whose members retain sovereign power.

Bern and the divided confederacy

The Federalist discussion invokes the Swiss confederacy as one of several historical tests of confederal government. Its relevance lies in the gap between a nominal union and the ability to act together when a serious disagreement arises. Religious controversies had kindled violent and bloody contests among the cantons and, in the authors’ account, effectively severed the league. The Protestant and Catholic cantons thereafter maintained separate diets, leaving the general diet with little beyond the care of common bailiwicks.

Leadership of the Protestant association

In the aftermath of that division, Bern stood at the head of the Protestant association. The opposing Catholic association was headed by Lucerne. These alignments show that the division was not merely a loss of common deliberation: the cantons organized themselves into separate political groupings, each with its own external connections.

Foreign alliances and political significance

The Protestant association under Bern allied with the United Provinces, while Lucerne’s Catholic association allied with France. The contrast makes the confederacy’s internal fracture consequential beyond its own institutions: a dispute that the common league could not contain was followed by separate associations and divergent foreign alliances. The Federalist uses this outcome to argue that a union of states may prove ineffective precisely when a conflict puts its cohesion to the test, and that internal division can expose it to competing external influences.