The Holy Roman Empire and its two daughters in Switzerland and the LoW Coun tries were losing ground throughout the 18th century; but their place as practice grounds for federal government was taken by an unex pected federal government in the New World. The New England colonists had formed a federation in 1643; but it had disappeared nearly a hundred years before the American Revolution. In 1775 the second Continental Congress practically formed a ccinfederation composed of the 13 colonies which joined in the Revolution. It made war, created a national debt, issued paper money, made rules for naval warfare and on 4 July 1776 took the responsi bility of announcing that /these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and inde pendent states?' Furthermore it framed a form of federal government under the name of Articles of Confederation, which was adopted by all the States and went into force in 1781.
This constitution proved too weak and was replaced by the Federal Constitution of 1787, which went into effect in 1789 just as the French Revolution was rising; and that Revolu tion gave the finishing. touch to the three de caying European confederations. The new Federal Constitution was the most elaborate and effective federal document that had ever been drawn, and with a few amendments his answered the needs of the nation during a cen tury and a quarter.
Nineteenth Century Federation.— After the Napoleonic wars Switzerland was admitted by the Great Powers to form a federation which included several cantons that had not been a part of the old union. Germany, also, was reorganized under what was called the Germanic Confederation, which was really a device for enabling Austria to dominate cen tral Europe. The Revolution of 1848 caused the Swiss to reform their constitution, follow ing closely the lines of that of the United States of America. The Germans also in 1849 made a desperate attempt to create a Federal empire with the king of Prussia at the head; but the difficulties could not be surmounted and Austria resumed the leading part.
The American Civil War gave a proof to the world of the ability of a great federation to maintain itself in the face of a formidable rebellion; and that was the signal for two ad ditional federations, both of which freely used the results of American experience. The Cana dians in 1867 secured from Great Britain the North America Act, by which the former colonies were authorized to unite in a Dominion of Canada. Within a few years all the British possessions in that part of the world, except Newfoundland, came into this union, which thus extended from ocean to ocean.
The Swiss in 1874 again revised their con stitution, in the direction of greater power for the central government; but the great federal event of this period was the creation in 1867 of the North German Union, which in 1871 was converted into the German Empire. Hungary and all the German population in Austria were shut out of this new combination, and formed a dual union having some federal features. The head and front of the German Empire was Prussia with more than half the territory and about two-thirds of the population of the whole empire; the Hohenzollerns as kings of Prussia became also German emperors. The Imperial Constitution in some ways much resembles the American; but is more centralized, especially in its powers over justice, commercial transac tions and transportation; and in war is prac tically supreme over all the states and their people. The American system of universal manhood suffrage was adopted for elections to the Reichstag.
The success of federation in Canada led to its adoption in the growing communities of Australia and South Africa. After a discus sion which lasted nearly 40 years, and several conventions, a federal constitution was finally agreed upon by the Australians and went into force in 1900. It includes the five provinces of the continent of Australia and the Island of Tasmania. The Australians secured from the British government a fundamental act under which the Supreme Court of Australia may make certain decisions which cannot be ap pealed to Great Britain.
South Africa was in a state of confusion from the time of the conquest of the Cape Colony from the Dutch in the Napoleonic Wars. Then the Dutch colonists of Transvaal and Orange Free State set up independent states and the British overcame those two states in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902. In 1909 these two colonies, which had been .reor ganized, together with Cape Colony and Natal united in the union of South Africa. The con stitution is decidedly more centralized than that of any of the other five active confederations of the world.
Several Latin American states — Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, Colombia, the Ar gentine and Brazil — have had, and most of them still have, the outward forms of a federal government; but the two last named are the only ones that approach the federal spirit or the federal methods of actions, as shown in the other governments of the world.