Anatomy of a Controversy: The Debate over "Essays and Reviews," 1860-1864 By Josef L. Altholz (review)

War in so far as they pitted the advocates of "state rights" (die Sonderbund') against the more progressive advocates of a stronger federal union. The eventual result of the latter's quick victory was a series of constitutional revisions which rendered Switzerland a stronger, more stable country. Another historical analogy comes to mind, namely, the Kulturkampf, the state-church conflict which raged in Prussia in the 1870's. This, too, was a constitutional struggle which started with sectarian overtones. The issues which triggered the conflict in Switzerland were religious: the secularization of monasteries in a Protestant canton; an invitation to the radical Protestant biblical exegete, David Strauss, to teach in Zurich; and, in response, an invitation to the Jesuits to find a new home in Lucerne, which was the heart of the Sonderbund. Remak notes that in those days the Jesuits did not conjure up visions of civil rights, hospitals, and universities and then adds (in something of a non sequitur) that "Father Hesburg and Notre Dame's Fighting Irish were a century and a continent away."