Here is direct evidence from the people of the Forest States themselves that they did not aspire as yet to be free in the sense in which the nineteenth century understands that term. As far as can be judged from the document itself, there was no intention of cutting adrift from all previous enactments to found a new state, although this was the actual result of the league. The struggle seems to have been directed more particularly against corrupt judges, as is shown by the emphatic declaration in regard to them. Especially noteworthy is the provision made for settling quarrels between the States by arbitration, a method which thereafter received wide application in the public affairs of the young Confederation.
History has recorded no words in which childlike faith in the justice of a cause and prophetic insight into its inevitable triumph have been better expressed than in the closing lines: “The above-written statutes, decreed for the commonweal and health, shall endure forever, God willing.” Succeeding centuries have practically verified the naive declaration of this group of unpretentious patriots, for the perpetual pact remained the fundamental statue-law of the growing Confederation for centuries, and was only superseded by enactments of a more modern date, when it had as a matter of fact died of old age.
The name of the place where this historic document was signed is not revealed in the text, but in any case it must have been somewhere in the incomparable environment of the Lake of Luzern. It is also to be regretted that the names of the signers have not been handed down to us. We can only speculate as to who those patriots were, but a fortunate circumstance has put us in possession of a list of men who, if they were not the actual signers of the first league, were at all events leading personages in two of the Forest States at the time under consideration.
A little more than two months after the conclusion of this league, Uri and Schwiz entered into a separate alliance for three years with Zürich,[1] and the names of their representatives
- ↑ Oechsli, W. Quellenbuch. p. 50.
