Bismarck was then residing at Wilhelms-Strasse, No. 71; in the summer he went to Pomerania, and thence, in August, proceeded to Brandenburg for the election, and finally to Berlin.
The new electoral law for the Second Chamber, and a decree summoning both Chambers for the 7th of August, had already been published, on the 30th of May. This new Chamber, which had grown clearer as to the position of parties, was employed with the revision of the Customs Constitution and with the German policy of Prussia—in fact, with the plans for union proposed by Herr von Radowitz.
Bismarck, who now appeared more and more as one of the leaders of the conservative party, declared against the projects of union and the triple alliance, because it was founded at the cost of Prussia’s specific interests, and, if successful, would, in the end ruin her. On the 6th of September, 1849, Bismarck spoke as follows:—
“I am of opinion that the motive principles of the year 1848 were far more social than national. National action would have confined itself to a few, but prominent, persons, in more contracted circles, if the ground had not been shaken under our feet, drawing in the social element, by false representations as to the ambition of the proletariat to acquire the property of others. The envy the poor had of the rich was excited in proportion to the continued feeding of a spirit of license from high quarters, which destroyed the moral elements of resistance in the minds of men. I do not believe that these evils would be averted by democratic concessions, or by projects of German unity; the seat of the disease is deeper; but I deny that any desire has ever existed in the Prussian people towards a national regeneration on the model of the theories of Frankfurt. The policy of Frederick the Great has been frequently alluded to; and it has even been identified with the proposition for union. I rather am of opinion that Frederick II. would have turned to the most prominent peculiarity of Prussian nationality, to her warlike element, and not without a result. He would have known that to-day, as in the era of our fathers, the sound of the trumpet which called to the standard of the father of the country, has lost no charm for the Prussian ear, whether the question concern the defense of the frontier or the fame and greatness of Prussia. He would have had the alternative, after the rupture with Frankfurt, to ally himself with our ancient ally, Austria, and then assume the brilliant part enacted by the Emperor of Russia, in alliance with Austria, to destroy the common enemy—Revolution; or he would have been free, with the same justification he possessed for the conquest of Silesia, after declining the Frankfurt imperial crown, to decide what the nature of the German constitution should be, at the risk of casting the sword into the balance. This would have been a national Prussian policy! In this way Prussia, in union with Austria or alone, would have been able to arrive at the proper position that would have endowed Germany with the power it should possess in Europe. The plan of a constitutional union, however, destroys the Prussian specific character.”
We must draw especial attention to the reply which Bismarck made to the argument of Herr von Radowitz, that the Frankfurt Assembly had shielded Prussia against some dangers.
“I am not in the least aware,” said Bismarck, “of such a thing. I only know that the 38th Prussian Regiment, on the 18th of September, 1848, preserved us from that which the Frankfurt Parliament, with its predecessor, had conjured up. The specific character of Prussia actually accomplished this. This was the remains of the heretic Prussiadom which had survived the Revolution; the Prussian army, the Prussian treasury, the fruits of Prussian administration accumulated through many years, and the animated reaction exerted by King and people on each other in Prussia. It consisted in the attachment of the Prussian population to the established dynasty; it consisted in the old Prussian virtues of honor, fidelity, obedience, and bravery, which inspire every Prussian soldier from the backbone—from the officers to the youngest recruit. The army has no enthusiasm for the tricolor; in it, as in the rest of the people, will be found no longing for national regeneration. The name of Prussia is all-sufficient for it. These hosts follow the banner of black and white, and not the tricolor: under the black and white they joyfully die for their country. The tricolor has been, since the 18th March, recognized as the attribute of their opponents. The accents of the Prussian National Anthem, the strains of the Dessau and Hohenfriedberg March, are well known and beloved among them: but I have never yet heard a Prussian soldier sing, ‘What is the German fatherland?’ The nation whence this army has sprung, and of which the army is the truest representative, in the happy and accurate words of the President of the First Chamber, Rudolf von Auerswald, does not need to see the Prussian monarchy melt away in the filthy ferment of South German immorality. We are Prussians, and Prussians we desire to remain. I know that in these words I utter the creed of the Prussian army, the creed of the majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I hope to God that we shall continue Prussians, when this bit of paper is forgotten like the withered leaf of autumn!”
This love for the Prussian army, this enthusiasm for it, is a red line which runs through the whole political life of Bismarck. In it he recognizes the especial representative of the Prussian nation, the pillar of the State; and this was quite in the style of Frederick; for did not the great monarch say, “that the sky did not rest more firmly on the shoulders of Atlas, than the Prussian State on the regiments of the army.” The German policy of Herr von Radowitz had no more conscious and energetic opponent than Herr von Bismarck, unless in the excellent General von Rauch, the Royal Adjutant-General, a remarkable and highly gifted statesman, who opposed him on every opportunity in his powerful way, even in the royal presence. Radowitz, on one occasion, in his emphatic style, conjured the King, like Cæsar, to cross the Rubicon. General von Rauch replied, with a twang of the Berlin dialect, “I do not know that fellow Cæsar, nor that fellow the Rubicon, but the man can not be a true Prussian who counsels His Majesty thus!” Herr von Radowitz, it is known, was not a born Prussian.
As to the revision of the constitution, Herr von Bismarck and his associates strove actively to endow it with such a shape that it would be possible for the King actually to govern with it. Much was accomplished, but “Far from sufficient!” said Bismarck. Nor was it the fault of Bismarck that much more was not done.
He was particularly zealous against the power of granting taxation by the Diet. “The centre of gravity, the whole power of the State, departs from the Crown to the Chambers, or their majorities, and nothing then will remain to the Crown but the power of carrying out the votes of the majority. It is true the Government can dissolve the Chambers, and proceed to new elections, but the new Chambers might choose to pursue the way of the old, and thus the conflict would become insoluble and eternal; there is no way of avoiding this. This would be overturning the Prussian State Prerogative, he perceived, the effects of which very easily would be of a more enduring nature than those of the so-called March Revolution!”
The orator of 1849 seemed to have a perception of the conflicts which the Premier of 1862 would have to pass through: he then did not see how he should emerge from such a state of things, but in 1866 he found the way the via triumphalis.