The great interest and importance of the following documents, from their forming the absolute point of departure of Bismarck’s political activity, has induced their republication in this volume, together with some few other papers bearing upon various matters in relation to German and Prussian politics. At the present day they can not fail to be read with interest, inasmuch as they illustrate in a remarkable degree the impolicy of hasty concessions. The Prussia and Germany of 1847 was hardly prepared by political education and enlightenment for such concessions, and the immediate effect, which the English editor of these pages personally witnessed, was a stimulant to the ultra party to demand more and more at the hands of the King. The text amply illustrates the excited state of public opinion at the time, which culminated in the days of March, 1848, and has required the steady and fearless hand of Count Bismarck to rein in. Political students can make their own comments.
The following is a translation of a decree dated Berlin, February 3d, 1847:—
We, Frederick William, by the grace of God, King of Prussia, etc., give notice, and herewith ordain to be known:—
Since the commencement of our government we have constantly applied particular care to the development of the relations of the States of our country.
We recognize in this matter one of the weightiest problems of the kingly calling bestowed on us by God, in the solution of which a twofold aim is marked out for us—namely, to transmit the rights, the dignity, and the power of the Crown, inherited from our ancestors of glorious memory, intact to our successors on the throne; but at the same time to grant, to the faithful States of our monarchy that co-operation which, in unison with those rights, and the peculiar relations of our monarchy, is fitted to secure a prosperous future to our country.
In respect whereof, continuing to build on the laws given by His late Majesty our Royal Father, now resting with God, particularly on the Ordinance respecting the national debt of the 17th of January, 1820, and on the law respecting the regulation of the Provincial Diets of the 5th of June, 1828, we decree as follows:—
1.—As often as the wants of the State may require either fresh loans, or the introduction of new taxes, or the increase of those already existing, we will call together around us the Provincial Diets of the monarchy in an United Diet, in order, firstly, to call into play that co-operation of the Diets provided by the Ordinance respecting the national debt; and secondly, to assure us of their consent.
2.—We will for the future call together at periodical times the Committee of the United Diet.
3.—To the United Diet, and, as its representative, to the Committee of the United Diet, we intrust—