[King Frederick William IV., on opening the Diet, made the following speech, of sufficient importance to be added here, when the circumstances of the grant of the Constitution are considered.]
Illustrious noble Princes, Counts, and Lords, my dear and trusty Orders of Nobles, Burghers, and Commons, I bid you from the depth of my heart welcome on the day of the fulfillment of a great work of my father, resting in God, never to be forgotten, King William III., of glorious memory.
The noble edifice of representative freedom, the eight mighty pillars of which the King of blessed memory founded deep and unshakably in the peculiar organization of his provinces, is to-day perfected in your Assembly. It has received its protecting roof. The King wished to have finished his work himself, but his views were shipwrecked in the utter impracticability of the plans laid before him. Therefrom arose evils which his clear eye detected with grief, and, before all, the uncertainty which made many a noble soil susceptible of weeds. Let us bless, however, to-day the conscientiousness of the true beloved King, who despised his own earlier triumph in order to guard his folk from later ruin, and let us honor his memory by not perilling the existence of his completed work by the impatient haste of beginners.
I give up beforehand all co-operation thereto. Let us suffer time, and, above all, experience, to have their way; and let us commit the work, as is fitting, to the furthering and forming hands of Divine Providence. Since the commencement of the operation of the Provincial Diets, I have perceived the defects of individual portions of our representative life, and proposed to myself conscientiously the grave question, how they were to be remedied? My resolutions on this point have long since arrived at maturity. Immediately on my accession I made the first step towards realizing them by forming the Committees of the Provincial Diets, and by calling them together soon after.
You are aware, Lords and Gentlemen, that I have now made the days for the meeting of those Committees periodical, and that I have confided to them the free working of the Provincial Diets. For the ordinary run of affairs their deliberations will satisfactorily represent the desired point of union. But the law of January 17th, 1820, respecting the State debts, gives, in that portion of it not as yet carried out, rights and privileges to the Orders which can be exercised neither by the Provincial Assemblies nor by the Committees.
As the heir of an unweakened crown, which I must and will hand down unweakened to my descendants, I know that I am perfectly free from all and every pledge with respect to what has not been carried out, and, above all, with respect to that from the execution of which his own true paternal conscience preserved my illustrious predecessor. The law is, however, carried out in all its essential parts; an edifice of justice has been built upon it, oaths have been sworn on it, and it has, all unfinished as it is, maintained itself as a wise law for seven-and-twenty years. Therefore have I proceeded, with a cheerful heart indeed, but with all the freedom of my kingly prerogative, to its final completion. I am, however, the irreconcilable enemy of all arbitrary proceedings, and must have been a foe, above all, to the idea of bringing together an artificial arbitrary assembly of the Orders, which should deprive the noble creation of the King, my dear father—I mean the Provincial Diets—of their value. It has been, therefore, for many years my firm determination only to form this Assembly, ordained by law, or by the fusion together of the Provincial Diets. It is formed; I have recognized your claim to all the rights flowing from that law; and, far beyond—yes, far beyond—all the promises of the King of blessed memory, I have granted you, within certain necessary limits, the right of granting taxes—a right, gentlemen, the responsibility of which weighs far more heavily than the honor which accompanies it. This august Assembly will now denote important periods in the existence of our State, which are treated of in my patent of February 3d. As soon as those periods occur, I will assemble the Diets on each separate occasion round my throne, in order to deliberate with them for the welfare of my country, and to afford them an opportunity for the exercise of their rights. I have, however, reserved the express right of calling together these great Assemblies on extraordinary occasions, when I deem it good and profitable; and I will do this willingly and at more frequent intervals, if this Diet gives me proof that I may act thus without prejudice to higher sovereign duties.
My trusty and free subjects have received all the laws which I and my father have granted them for the protection of their highest interests, and especially the laws of the 3d of February, with warm gratitude, and woe to him who shall dare to dash their thankfulness with care, or to turn it into ingratitude.
Every Prussian knows that for twenty-four years past all laws which concern his freedom and property have been first discussed by the Orders, but from this time forward let every one in my kingdom know that I, with the sole necessary exception of the occurrence of the calamity of war, will contract no State loan, levy no new taxes, nor increase existing ones, without the free consent of all Orders.
Noble Lords and trusty Orders, I know that with these rights I intrust a costly jewel of freedom to your hands, and that you will employ it faithfully. But I know, as certainly, that many will mistake and despise this jewel—that to many it is not enough. A portion of the press, for instance, demands outright from me and my Government a revolution in Church and State, and from you, gentlemen, acts of importunate ingratitude, of illegality—nay, of disobedience. Many also, and among them very worthy men, look for our safety in the conversion of the natural relation between Prince and people into a conventional existence, granted by charters and ratified by oaths.
May, however, the example of the one happy country, whose constitution centuries and a hereditary wisdom without a parallel, but no sheets of paper, have made, not be lost upon us, but find the respect which it deserves. If other countries find their happiness in another way than that people and ourselves, namely, in the way of “manufactured and granted” constitutions, we must and will praise their happiness in an upright and brotherly manner. We will, with the justest admiration, consider the sublime example, when a strong will of iron consequence and high intelligence succeeds in delaying, in mastering, and allaying every crisis of serious importance; and above all, when this tends to the welfare of Germany, and the maintenance of the peace of Europe. But Prussia, gentlemen, Prussia can not bear such a state of things. Do you ask why? I answer, cast your eyes at the map of Europe, at the position of our country, at its component parts; follow the line of our borders, weigh the power of our neighbors, throw before all an enlightened glance on our history. It has pleased God to make Prussia strong by the sword of war from without, and by the sword of intellect from within; not, surely, by the negative intellect of the age, but by the spirit of moderation and order. I speak out boldly, gentlemen. As in the camp, unless in cases of the most urgent danger or grossest folly, the command can only be rested in the will of one, so can the destinies of this country, unless it is to fall instantly from its height, only be guided by one will; and if the King of Prussia would commit an abomination, were he to demand from his subjects the subserviency of a slave, so would he commit a far greater abomination were he not to demand from them the crowning virtue of freemen—I mean obedience for the sake of God and conscience. Whoever is alarmed at the tenor of these words, him I refer to the development of our laws for a century back, to the edicts of the Orders, and finally, to this Assembly and its rights; there he may find consolation if he will.