This study argues that the modem political philosophy of federalism is
directly linked to the Swiss Reformed idea of religious covenant, whi
ch was first formulated in the 1520s and 1530s by Heinrich Bullinger i
n Zurich. Bullinger's concept of religious covenant had roots both in
the Old Testament and in the early federal ideal and reality that had
come out of the Swiss Middle Ages; it therefore had important social a
nd political implications as well as theological meaning. During the s
ixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, this theological idea of fed
eralism fed into and helped to create the modern political concept of
federalism, especially in the thought of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay and
Johannes Althusius. Political federalism became a reality in the Cons
titution of the United States in the late eighteenth century. The Swis
s federal Constitution of 1848 was instructed by the mature concept of
political federalism, by the Constitution of the United States, and b
y the long tradition of Swiss federalism. All of these influences had
some basis in the uniquely Swiss idea of religious covenant.