The Referendum came first; and in its modern form was first adopted in the Constitution of the canton of St. Gall in 1831, the second and third articles of which read:
Art. 2.--The people of the canton are sovereign. Sovereignty, which is the sum of all political powers, resides in the whole body of citizens.
Art. 3.--It results from this that the people themselves exercise the legislative powers, and every law is submitted to their sanction. This sanction is the right of the people to refuse to recognise any law submitted to them, and to prevent its execution in virtue of their sovereign power.
From St. Gall it spread to each of the other twenty-two cantons, and to the legislation reserved to the Federal Assembly. Everywhere it is either compulsory for every law to be submitted to the people by Referendum, or for laws to be submitted when a given number of electors, within a limited period of time, have demanded that the Referendum be exercised, some of the cantons having adopted it in one form and some in another, the Confederation adopting it in the optional rather than in the obligatory form. Then, after the Referendum, followed the Initiative with quick pace, by which the people asserted the right, not merely that laws may be submitted to them for their approval or rejection, but that a given number of electors (in writing) may demand that the Legislature proceed without delay to legislate on any matter that they judge to be of sufficient importance.
At first sight measures such as these appear to be revolutionary and drastic. In practice they have proved to be conservative. The mere existence of the Referendum has proved to be a check on legislation that might otherwise have been carried by parliamentary manoeuvring for votes. The people, in actual fact, have proved to be both purer and more conservative than their representatives; and the tendency towards economy in the expenditure of public moneys has, in the main, been not the least benefit it has conferred. People are little inclined to study bills debated in the national assembly when they realise that they are powerless to change or check the measures it may pass. The power to throw out their representatives at the next general election is only a limited form of freedom, and it is illusory in face of the fact that those representatives are generally chosen by powerful political organisations which take care to select pliant and obedient tools. Only at times of great crisis does the wish of the people become vocal; and even then it is more usually neglected than not. But with the Referendum in their hands (especially with the Initiative added to it) the will of the people is always present. The people can hasten legislation where it moves slowly. They can retard it where it presses too fast ahead. They themselves can make the pace. And the effect on themselves is that, with this added responsibility, they take a quick interest in their own concerns. In the first place they break up the power of political organisations; and in the second place they themselves become alert and educated citizens, responsible and intelligent guiders of their own destinies.