For his entire tenure of eight years, Franscini supervised the Federal Department of Home Affairs. The constitution of 1848 granted the cantons far more autonomy than later revisions after 1874 would ever allow again, and the department's defined scope of responsibility was very small in comparison to what it would become later. Its primary focus was to organize the federal chancellory and federal archive. Other official duties included the collection of statistical data, supervision of religious rights and peace between confessions, sanitary measures in case of epidemic disease, and the standardization of weights and measurement.