1879 Swiss referendums

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Two referendums were held in Switzerland in January and May 1879.^[1] A federal law on subsidies for railways in the Alps was passed by 70.7% of voters on 19 January, whilst a referendum on abolishing the constitutional ban on the death penalty on 18 May was passed by 52.5% of voters and a majority of cantons. Following the vote, ten of the 26 cantons reintroduced the death penalty during the 1880s and 1890s and nine executions occurred before its nationwide abolition in 1938, when a new criminal code (which overrode cantonal penal codes) was approved in a referendum.