A. D.1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).
FARSAKH, OR FARSANG, The.
See PARASANG.
FASCES.
See LICTORS.
FASTI.
"Dies Fasti were the days upon which the Courts of Justice [in
ancient Rome] were open, and legal business could be
transacted before the Praetor; the Dies Nefasti were those
upon which the Courts were closed. ... All days consecrated to
the worship of the Gods by sacrifices, feasts or games, were
named Festi. ... For nearly four centuries and a-half after
the foundation of the city the knowledge of the Calendar was
confined to the Pontifices alone. ... These secrets which
might be, and doubtless often were, employed for political
ends, were at length divulged in the year B. C. 314, by Cn.
Flavius, who drew up tables embracing all this
carefully-treasured information, and hung them up in the Forum
for the inspection of the public. From this time forward
documents of this description were known by the name of Fasti.
... These Fasti, in fact, corresponded very closely to a
modern Almanac. ... The Fasti just described have, to prevent
confusion, been called Calendaria, or Fasti Calendares, and
must be carefully distinguished from certain compositions also
named Fasti by the ancients. These were regular chronicles in
which were recorded each year the names of the Consuls and
other magistrates, together with the remarkable events, and
the days on which they occurred. The most important were the
Annales Maximi, kept by the Pontifex Maximus."
_W. Ramsay,
Manual of Roman Antiquities,
chapter 11._
FATIMITE CALIPHS, The.
See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171;
Also, ASSASSINS.
FAVILA, King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 737-739.
FEAST OF LIBERTY.
See GREECE: B. C. 479:
PERSIAN WARS.
PLATÆA.
FEAST OF REASON, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (NOVEMBER).
FEAST OF THE FEDERATION, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1789-1791.
FEAST OF THE SUPREME BEING, The.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (NOVEMBER-JUNE).
FECIALES.--FETIALES.
See FETIALES.
FEDELI.
See CATTANI.
FEDERAL CITY, The.
See WASHINGTON (CITY): A. D. 1791.
FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF SWITZERLAND.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION.
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FEDERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
See CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.--FEDERATIONS.
"Two requisites seem necessary to constitute a Federal
Government in ... its most perfect form. On the one hand, each
of the members of the Union must be wholly independent in
those matters which concern each member only. On the other
hand, all must be subject to a common power in those matters
which concern the whole body of members collectively. Thus
each member will fix for itself the laws of its criminal
jurisprudence, and even the details of its political
constitution. And it will do this, not as a matter of
privilege or concession from any higher power, but as a matter
of absolute right, by virtue of its inherent powers as an
independent commonwealth. But in all matters which concern the
general body, the sovereignty of the several members will
cease. Each member is perfectly independent within its own
sphere; but there is another sphere in which its independence,
or rather its separate existence, vanishes. It is invested
with every right of sovereignty on one class of subjects, but
there is another class of subjects on which it is as incapable
of separate political action as any province or city of a
monarchy or of an indivisible republic. ... Four Federal
Commonwealths ... stand out, in four different ages of the
world, as commanding, above all others, the attention of
students of political history. Of these four, one belongs to
what is usually known as 'ancient,' another to what is
commonly called 'mediæval' history; a third arose in the
period of transition between mediæval and modern history; the
creation of the fourth may have been witnessed by some few of
those who are still counted among living men, ... These four
Commonwealths are, First, the Achaian League [see GREECE: B.
C. 280-146] in the later days of Ancient Greece, whose most
flourishing period comes within the third century before our
era. Second, the Confederation of the Swiss Cantons [see
CONSTITUTION OF THE SWISS CONFEDERATION], which, with many
changes in its extent and constitution, has lasted from the
thirteenth century to our own day. Third, the Seven United
Provinces of the Netherlands [see NETHERLANDS: A. D.
1577-1581, and after], whose Union arose in the War of
Independence against Spain, and lasted, in a republican form,
till the war of the French Revolution. Fourth, the United
States of North America [see CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA], which formed a Federal Union after their revolt
from the British Crown under George the Third, and whose
destiny forms one of the most important, and certainly the
most interesting, of the political problems of our own time.
Of these four, three come sufficiently near to the full
realization of the Federal idea to be entitled to rank among
perfect Federal Governments. The Achaian League, and the
United States since the adoption of the present Constitution,
are indeed the most perfect developments of the Federal
principle which the world has ever seen. The Swiss
Confederation, in its origin a Union of the loosest kind, has
gradually drawn the Federal bond tighter and tighter, till,
within our own times, it has assumed a form which fairly
entitles it to rank beside Achaia and America. The claim of
the United Provinces is more doubtful; their union was at no
period of their republican being so close as that of Achaia,
America, and modern Switzerland."
_E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
volume 1, pages 3-6._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Classification of Federal Governments.
"To the classification of federal governments publicists have
given great attention with unsatisfactory results. History
shows a great variety of forms, ranging from the lowest
possible organization, like that of the Amphictyonic Council
[see AMPHIKTYONIC COUNCIL] to the highly centralized and
powerful German Empire. Many writers deny that any fixed
boundaries can be described. The usual classification is,
however, into three divisions,--the Staatenstaat, or state
founded on states; the Staatenbund, or union of states--to
which the term Confederacy nearly corresponds; and the
Bundesstaat, or united state, which answers substantially to
the term federation as usually employed. The Staatenstaat is
defined to be a state in which the units are not individuals,
but states, and which, therefore, has no operation directly on
individuals, but deals with and legislates for its corporate
members; they preserve undisturbed their powers of government
over their own subjects. The usual example of a Staatenstaat
is the Holy Roman Empire [see ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY]. This
conception ... is, however, illogical in theory, and never has
been carried out in practice. ... Historically, also, the
distinction is untenable. The Holy Roman Empire had courts,
taxes, and even subjects not connected with the states. In
theory it had superior claims upon all the individuals within
the Empire; in practice it abandoned control over the states.
The second category is better established. Jellinek says:
"When states form a permanent political alliance, of which
common defence is at the very least the purpose, with
permanent federal organs, there arises a Staatenbund.' This
form of government is distinguished from an alliance by the
fact that it has permanent federal organs; from a commercial
league by its political purpose; from a Bundesstaat by its
limited purpose. In other words, under Staatenbund are
included the weaker forms of true federal government, in which
there is independence from other powers, and, within the
purposes of the union, independence from the constituent
states. ... The Staatenbund form includes most of the federal
governments which have existed. The Greek confederations
(except perhaps the Lycian and Achæan) and all the mediæval
leagues were of this type: even the strong modern unions of
the United States, Germany, and Switzerland, have gone through
the Staatenbund stage in their earlier history. Between the
Staatenbund and the more highly developed form, the
Bundesstaat, no writer has described an accurate boundary.
There are certain governments, notably those of Canada,
Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, in which is found
an elaborate and powerful central organism, including federal
courts; to this organism is assigned all or nearly all the
common concerns of the nation; within its exclusive control
are war, foreign affairs, commerce, colonies, and national
finances; and there is an efficient power of enforcement
against states. Such governments undoubtedly are
Bundesstaaten."
_A. B. Hart,
Introduction to the Study of Federal Government
(Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2),
chapter 1._
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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Greek Federations.
"Under the conditions of the Græco-Roman civic life there were
but two practicable methods of forming a great state and
diminishing the quantity of warfare. The one method was
conquest with incorporation, the other method was federation.
... Neither method was adopted by the Greeks in their day of
greatness. The Spartan method of extending its power was
conquest without incorporation: when Sparta conquered another
Greek city, she sent a harmost to govern it like a tyrant; in
other words she virtually enslaved the subject city. The
efforts of Athens tended more in the direction of a peaceful
federalism. In the great Delian confederacy [see GREECE: B. C.
478-477, and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454], which developed into the
maritime empire of Athens, the Ægean cities were treated as
allies rather than subjects. As regards their local affairs
they were in no way interfered with, and could they have been
represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, the
course of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered.
As it was, they were all deprived of one essential element of
sovereignty,--the power of controlling their own military
forces. ... In the century following the death of Alexander,
in the closing age of Hellenic independence, the federal idea
appears in a much more advanced stage of elaboration, though
in a part of Greece which had been held of little account in
the great days of Athens and Sparta. Between the Achaian
federation, framed in 274 B. C., and the United States of
America, there are some interesting points of resemblance
which have been elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his
'History of Federal Government.' About the same time the
Ætolian League [see ÆTOLIAN LEAGUE] came into prominence in
the north. Both these leagues were instances of true federal
government, and were not mere confederations; that is, the
central government acted directly upon all the citizens and
not merely upon the local governments. Each of these leagues
had for its chief executive officer a General elected for one
year, with powers similar to those of an American President.
In each the supreme assembly was a primary assembly at which
every citizen from every city of the league had a right to be
present, to speak, and to vote; but as a natural consequence
these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocratic
bodies. In Ætolia, which was a group of mountain cantons
similar to Switzerland, the federal union was more complete
than in Achaia, which was a group of cities. ... In so far as
Greece contributed anything towards the formation of great and
pacific political aggregates, she did it through attempts at
federation. But in so low a state of political development as
that which prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world in
pre-Christian times, the more barbarous method of conquest
with incorporation was more likely to be successful on a great
scale. This was well illustrated in the history of Rome,--a civic
community of the same generic type with Sparta and Athens, but
presenting specific differences of the highest importance. ...
Rome early succeeded in freeing itself from that insuperable
prejudice which elsewhere prevented the ancient city from
admitting aliens to a share in its franchise. And in this
victory over primeval political ideas lay the whole secret of
Rome's mighty career."
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Mediæval Leagues in Germany.
"It is hardly too much to say that the Lombard League led
naturally to the leagues of German cities. The exhausting
efforts of the Hohenstaufen Emperors to secure dominion in
Italy compelled them to grant privileges to the cities in
Germany; the weaker emperors, who followed, bought support
with new charters and privileges. The inability of the Empire
to keep the peace or to protect commerce led speedily to the
formation of great unions of cities, usually commercial in
origin, but very soon becoming political forces of prime
importance. The first of these was the Rhenish League, formed
in 1254. The more important cities of the Rhine valley, from
Basle to Cologne, were the original members; but it eventually
had seventy members, including several princes and ruling
prelates. The league had Colloquia, or assemblies, at stated
intervals; but, beyond deciding upon a general policy, and the
assignment of military quotas, it had no legislative powers.
There was, however, a Kommission, or federal court, which
acted as arbiter in disputes between the members. The chief
political service of the league was to maintain peace during
the interregnum in the Empire (1256-1273). During the
fourteenth century it fell apart, and many of its members
joined the Hansa or Suabian League. ... In 1377 seventeen
Suabian cities, which had been mortgaged by the Emperor,
united to defend their liberties. They received many
accessions of German and Swiss cities; but in 1388 they were
overthrown by Leopold III. of Austria, and all combinations of
cities were forbidden. A federal government they cannot be
said to have possessed; but political, almost federal
relations continued during the fifteenth century. The similar
leagues of Frankfort and Wetterau were broken up about the
same time. Other leagues of cities and cantons were in a like
manner formed and dissolved,--among them the leagues of
Hauenstein and Burgundy; and there was a confederation in
Franche Comté, afterward French territory. All the mediæval
leagues thus far mentioned were defensive, and had no extended
relations beyond their own borders. The great Hanseatic League
[see HANSA TOWNS], organized as a commercial union, developed
into a political and international power, which negotiated and
made war on its own account with foreign and German
sovereigns; and which was for two centuries one of the leading
powers of Europe."
_A. B. Hart,
Introduction to the Study of Federal Government
(Harvard Historical Monographs, number 2),
chapter 3._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Mediæval League of Lombardy.
When Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the fifth time in
1163, to enforce the despotic sovereignty over that country
which the German kings, as emperors, were then claiming (see
ITALY: A. D. 961-1039), a league of the Lombard cities was
formed to resist him. "Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso,
the most powerful towns of the Veronese marches, assembled
their consuls in congress, to consider of the means of putting
an end to a tyranny which overwhelmed them. The consuls of
these four towns pledged themselves by oath in the name of
their cities to give mutual support to each other in the
assertion of their former rights, and in the resolution to
reduce the imperial prerogatives to the point at which they
were fixed under the reign of Henry IV. Frederick, informed of
this association; returned hastily into Northern Italy, to put it
down ... but he soon perceived that the spirit of liberty had
made progress in the Ghibeline cities as well as in those of
the Guelphs. ...
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Obliged to bend before a people which he considered only as
revolted subjects, he soon renounced a contest so humiliating,
and returned to Germany, to levy an army more submissive to
him. Other and more pressing interests diverted his attention
from this object till the autumn of 1166. ... When Frederick,
in the month of October, 1166, descended the mountains of the
Grisons to enter Italy by the territory of Brescia, he marched
his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of
hostility on the way. At Lodi, he assembled, towards the end
of November, a diet of the kingdom of Italy, at which he
promised the Lombards to redress the grievances occasioned by
the abuses of power by his podestas, and to respect their just
liberties; ... to give greater weight to his negotiation, he
marched his army into Central Italy. ... The towns of the
Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without
daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new
diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida,
between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo,
of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there, and joined those
of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, for
the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The
deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the
destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages
in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city
of Milan. This confederation was called the League of Lombardy.
The consuls took the oath, and their constituents afterwards
repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the recovery
of the common liberty; that the league for this purpose should
last twenty years; and, finally, that they should aid each
other in repairing in common any damage experienced in this
sacred cause, by any one member of the confederation:
extending even to the past this contract for reciprocal
security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. ... Lodi was
soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath
to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia, Parma,
Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the
association."
_J. C. L. de Sismondi,
History of the Italian Republics,
chapter 2._
In 1226 the League was revived
or renewed against Frederick II.
See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.
"Milan and Bologna took the lead, and were followed by
Piacenza, Verona, Brescia, Faenza, Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi,
Bergamo, Turin, Alessandria, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso. ...
Nothing could be more unlike, than the First and the Second
Lombard Leagues, that of 1167, formed against Frederick the
First after the most cruel provocation, was sanctioned by the
Pope, and had for its end the deliverance of Lombardy. That of
1226, formed against Frederick the Second, after no
provocation received, was discountenanced by the Pope, and
resulted in the frustration of the Crusade and in sowing the
germ of endless civil wars. This year is fixed upon by the
Brescian Chronicler as the beginning of 'those plaguy factions
of Guelf and Ghibelline, which were so engrained into the
minds of our forefathers, that they have handed them down as
an heir-loom to their posterity, never to come to an end.'"
_T. L. Kington,
History of Frederick the Second,
volume 1, pages 265-266._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
Modern Federations.
"A remarkable phenomenon of the last hundred years is the
impetus that has been given to the development of Federal
institutions. There are to-day contemporaneously existing no
less than eight distinct Federal Governments. First and
foremost is the United States of America, where we have an
example of the Federal Union in the most perfect form yet
attained. Then comes Switzerland, of less importance than the
United States of America, but most nearly approaching it in
perfection. Again we have the German Empire [see CONSTITUTION
OF GERMANY], that great factor in European politics, which is
truly a Federal Union, but a cumbrous one and full of
anomalies. Next in importance comes the Dominion of Canada
[see CONSTITUTION OF CANADA], which is the only example of a
country forming a Federal Union and at the same time a colony.
Lastly come the Argentine Republic, Mexico, and the States of
Colombia and Venezuela [see CONSTITUTIONS]. This is a very
remarkable list when we consider that never before the present
century did more than two Federal Unions ever coexist, and
that very rarely, and that even those unions were far from
satisfying the true requirements of Federation. Nor is this
all. Throughout the last hundred years we can mark a growing
tendency in countries that have adopted the Federal type of
Government to perfect that Federal type and make it more truly
Federal than before. In the United States of America, for
instance, the Constitution of 1789 was more truly Federal than
the Articles of Confederation, and certainly since the Civil
War we hear less of State Rights, and more of Union. It has
indeed been remarked that the citizens of the United States
have become fond of applying the words 'Nation' and 'National'
to themselves in a manner formerly unknown. We can mark the
same progress in Switzerland. Before 1789, Switzerland formed
a very loose system of Confederated States--in 1815, a
constitution more truly Federal was devised; in 1848, the
Federal Union was more firmly consolidated; and lastly, in
1874, such changes were made in the Constitution that
Switzerland now presents a very fairly perfect example of
Federal Government. In Germany we may trace a similar
movement. In 1815, the Germanic Confederation was formed; but
it was only a system of Confederated States, or what the
Germans call Staatenbund; but after various changes, amongst
others the exclusion of Austria in 1866, it became, in 1871, a
composite State or, in German language, a Bundestaat. Beyond
this, we have to note a further tendency to Federation. In the
year 1886, a Bill passed the Imperial Parliament to permit of
the formation of an Australasian Council for the purposes of
forming the Australasian Colonies into a Federation. Then we
hear of further aspirations for applying the Federal system,
as though there were some peculiar virtue or talismanic effect
about it which rendered it a panacea for all political troubles.
There has, also, been much talk about Imperial Federation.
Lastly, some people think they see a simple solution of the
Irish Question in the application of Federation, particularly
the Canadian form of it, to Ireland."
_Federal Government
(Westminster Rev., May, 1888,
pages 573-574)._
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