FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Origin of Federation.— The first types of human govern ment were groups of a few people—a family or a tribe. In the course of time larger units were formed with a single government by races and regional groups, such as the king doms of Egypt and Assyria. The next step was a system of composite governments, made up of central monarchies with dependent provinces, of which the Roman Empire was the greatest example.
These big centralized powers sought to overwhelm and annex their small neighbors; and this pressure led to the first crude forms of Federal government, in which small and weak units united in a union which could pro tect its members from outside aggressions, while leaving each free to carry on its own local affairs in its own way. This middle type, which preserved the individuality of small states while securing some of the military power and resistance of great states, appeared first among the Greeks, from whom sprang so many fruitful ideas in government.
Inasmuch as the usual type of a Greek state was a city, the Greek federations were mostly unions of cities, such as the Lycian group in Asia Minor, the Amphictyonic Council and the Achman Confederation. In one case, the Delian League, Athens secured the leadership and pressed the sister states so hard that at last they revolted. The most famous of the Greek Leagues were two : the lEtolian, made up of a group of mountain tribes, north of the Gulf of Corinth; and the Achwan, which was the best organized, Strongest and longest lived. Twelve cities, including Corinth, came into this federation about 274 wc.; and it lasted till crushed by the Romans in 146 B.C. No efforts availed, however, to induce all the Greeks to unite in a similar union, which might have saved them from conquest.
The same idea of unions of city states ap peared among the Etruscans and Latins in Italy, and Rome itself was in its early days a member of a league of 30 towns; but the idea of a world state overbore the federal theory; and the Roman Empire revived the ancient idea of a central state, with a vast empire of dependent provinces. Out of the ruins of Rome arose a new group of Italian cities ; and there, in the 12th century, appeared the Lombard League; and similar unions were formed in the rising German cities north of the Alps.
European and American.— Both the Italian and the German unions were opposed by the German emperor, the head of the Holy Roman Empire, who strove to restore the Roman idea of an enormous centralized power. The con flict lasted for seven centuries during which the empire itself gradually lost authority till it be came a loose, weak and irregular federation.
vo1.. 11 — 6 Within its limits were created three other federations, the Hansa, the Swiss League and the Dutch United Netherlands, all of which were built up from small units into powerful federal unions.
The Hansa was a commercial union of manufacturing and trading cities, the main pur pose of which was to control the Baltic trade. It lasted from 1367 to 1669, included about 60 cities, made treaties, established agencies and warehouses in foreign countries, built fleets and waged war.
The Swiss confederation was founded in 1293 by the mountain cantons of Uri Schwytz and Unterwalden; 50 years later five more can tons were added, including four strong cities, and later five more city and country states came in. The situation of these united Swiss in heart of the Alps gave them defense. Their own valor and skill as a powerful infantry fighting in mass made them conquerors of neighboring territory, including important valleys south of the Alps. Their success as soldiers drew the attention of the sovereigns of France, who for centuries made Switzerland a recruiting ground for their armies. They passed through the crisis of the Reformation without a breakup; and their federal government lasted till 1798: The United Netherlands was composed of seven provinces which revolted from Spain and in 1579 united under a weak and imperfect constitution called the Union of Utrecht. There after they clung together and maintained their own government till 1795. They became a great sea power, having large merchant fleets, strong navies and colonies in the eastern and the western hemisphere; hut their federal government was always weak and subject to the leadership of the largest province, Holland.