The Kaiser’s crown at last, and how and why; herein, we sum up the very flower of our great man’s genius; and mark it well!
¶ The very name “Kaiser” brings up memories of the Middle Ages, thence backward to the days of imperial Cæsar. Kaiser, at best, is but Cæsar, rewritten.
Yet Bismarck was at great pains to make clear that the substitution of Kaiser for King of Prussia involved no restoration of ancient imperial institutions.
¶ The use of Kaiser, as the title for the new monarch, had behind it a deep, almost religious purpose, in conformity with the sense of nationality and brotherhood to which through long and painful development the German states had at last attained. Bismarck calls the return of the title “a political necessity, making for unity and centralization.”
¶ “I was convinced,” he says, “that the pressure solidifying our imperial institutions would be more permanent the more the Prussian wearer of the imperial title should himself avoid that dangerous striving on the part of our dynasty to flaunt its own pre-eminence in the face of other dynasties. King William I was not free from this inclination ... to call forth a recognition of the superior prestige of Prussia’s crown, over the Kaiser’s title.”
¶ The Kaiser idea is simple: He is the sworn servant “of” the people, but his terms are his own, viz., all is “for” the people, but not “through” the people.
Such in a few words is the Bismarckian conception of a strong ruler.
¶ It was not, then, to be “an expanded Prussia,” but a German Empire. And the Kaiser’s powers are hence the legal functions of an imperial organ, attached by the organic law of the Empire to the Prussian crown.
Thus Germany is a true state, but not a monarchy; sovereignty does not rest with the Kaiser, but with the totality of the allied governments. And in turn the old states became provinces of the Empire; and the Kaiser exercises his powers in the name of the Empire.