Law Prohibiting Advocacy of Submission to Austria

The Law Prohibiting Advocacy of Submission to Austria is a collective resolution that makes support for yielding to Austria grounds for civic and social exclusion. Adopted by the assembled representatives of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, it defines resistance not merely as a military necessity but as a condition of belonging to the community. Its force comes from the gathering’s explicit assent and from the distinction it draws between Austrian domination and the cantons’ older, limited relationship with the Holy Roman Empire.

Political and Legal Background

The law arises within a political order presented as layered rather than simply independent or subject. The communities recall that they freely sought the protection of the Empire and that this protection was freely granted. Their historical claim to self-rule rests on their own laws and ancient usages: at home, they had governed themselves in peace, while the emperor’s stated right was to adjudge the penalty of death and to appoint a powerful noble as his delegate. The arrangement thus permits imperial authority and local autonomy to coexist, at least in principle.

That inheritance makes the proposal to submit to Austria especially charged. Werner Stauffacher argues that even the freest communities have some feudal lord and that there must be a supreme judge to whom disputes can be appealed. The debate does not therefore equate every form of superior authority with tyranny. It distinguishes freely accepted imperial protection, grounded in a charter and a recognized judicial relationship, from a new Austrian yoke imposed by force. The law’s target is advocacy of the latter, not the cantons’ historical obligations as they understand them.

Adoption at the Assembly

The measure is introduced as a proposal for the foremost of the community’s laws. One speaker insists that anyone who speaks of yielding to Austria should forfeit all a Switzer’s rights. Arnold of Melchthal enlarges the penalty: the advocate is to be stripped of rights and honors, and no one is to receive him at the hearth. The provision therefore reaches beyond formal standing. It threatens the bonds of hospitality through which a person remains part of communal life.

The response is enacted in public. Those present raise their right hands in agreement, after which Itel Reding pauses and then declares the law adopted. Rosselmann immediately connects that act to freedom, presenting the resolution itself as the moment the gathered people become free. The sequence matters: the rule is proposed, extended to social exclusion, assented to by the assembly, and confirmed by its presiding authority. Its legitimacy in the scene is made visible through shared action, not attributed to an outside ruler.

Scope and Political Effect

The law gives a severe communal consequence to a particular political position: urging the people to bear Austria’s rule. It does not simply prescribe resistance to a specific attack or name a single opponent. Instead, it establishes a standard for what may be advocated within the community and makes the defense of autonomy a test of civic allegiance. Loss of rights and honors marks the political penalty; refusal of a place at the hearth carries that penalty into everyday social relations.

The resolution precedes a discussion of what the communities should do to secure their rights. Walter Furst frames the objective as shaking off a hated thraldom and keeping ancient rights inviolate. He also draws a boundary around the proposed action: they will do what necessity requires, but nothing beyond it; they will drive out the tyrants and their agents and raze their strongholds. In this context, the law binds the community to reject submission while the proposed campaign is represented as defensive and limited. It supplies a shared political premise for collective action, rather than a detailed military plan.

Public Symbols and Continuing Meaning

The play sets the assembly’s decision against the public display of a cap in Altdorf. A crier announces in the emperor’s name that the cap will be placed on a high pole in the marketplace, where it becomes an object of imposed public observance. Later, after liberation, the cap is brought back on a pole before a crowd. Walter Furst rejects the suggestion that it should be burned: once an instrument of despots, it is now to be preserved as a lasting symbol of freedom. The object’s changed meaning echoes the law’s political reversal: a community once confronted with a demand for submission now publicly defines and defends its own terms of belonging.

The resolution is consequently both a rule and a staged act of collective self-definition. Its categorical sanctions leave little space for neutrality toward Austrian rule, while its setting within a history of customary self-government and imperial protection makes clear what kind of authority the people believe they may refuse. By turning agreement into law, the assembly converts a contested political choice into an obligation shared by the three communities.