statesman, six times president of the Swiss Confederation, and a champion of federal centralization.

Political leader and Landammann (chief executive) of his native canton of Aargau in 1858, 1862, and 1866, Welti entered the federal Ständerat (council of cantons) in 1857 and subsequently served as assembly president (1860, 1866). Elected to the federal executive (Bundesrat) in December 1866, he served six terms as president of the confederation (1869, 1872, 1876, 1880, 1884, 1891) and successively headed the departments of the army, posts and telegraphs, justice, and railways. He led the trend toward centralization of political and military administration in a federal executive, pressed for revision of the constitution, inaugurated a plan of military reorganization (1874–75), and supported demands for railway nationalization.