An exchange in a thread discussing constitutional reform in the United States during the 1860s go me thinking about all of the myriad events in Swiss history during the nineteenth century, and the numerous ways in which things may have progressed differently. The country began the century as the revolutionary Helvetic Republic before reverting to a Swiss confederacy of sorts after the failure of reforms to that regime. Then, further changes come as a result of the Congress of Vienna. I think I read somewhere that the Hapsburgs considered pushing to reacquire some/all of Switzerland at Vienna. Then, while the rest of Europe i in revolution in the 1840's, so too was Switzerland, via the Sonderbund War that could have split the country in two and resulted in a more centralized regime. Then there's Neuchatel, and boundary issues relating to Italian unification later in the century. I see this thread as a sounding board for discussing these events and others, and, how they might have been different.