First the authorities who received their powers from the Revolution resigned these into the hands of the National Assembly. On February 10, Commissar of the People Scheidemann declared before the Assembly, “Since the National Assembly is in session and the Provisional Constitution is adopted the historic mission which had been entrusted to us as a provisional government is terminated. We return the powers which we have received from the Revolution into the hands of the National Assembly.”
The next day, February 11, there was read before the Assembly a letter from the Central Committee of the German Socialist Republic in which three propositions should be noted. First, the Central Committee returned to the German National Assembly the powers which it had held by virtue of the authority given it by the Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils. Secondly, it demanded the incorporation of the Workers and Soldiers Councils in the future Constitution of the Empire to strengthen the representation of the workers and to defend the interests of the producers as well as to assure a popular organization of the Empire’s armed forces. Thirdly, it opposed with utmost energy the dangerous reappearance of the rights of sovereignty of individual states when these rights went beyond the domain of questions affecting the autonomy and the culture of the states.
There remained the task of organizing the new government in conformity with the provisions of the law. On February 11, Commissar of the People Ebert was elected President of the Reich by a vote of 277 out of a possible 328. He resigned as deputy and named a ministry headed by Scheidemann. As David, who had been elected President of the Assembly, was also appointed member of the Ministry without portfolio he was replaced as President of the National Assembly by Fehrenbach on February 12.
3.—THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND THE SUPPLEMENTARY LAWS.
The elaboration of the permanent Constitution lasted nearly seven months. There were preliminary drafts, drafts and supplementary drafts; which were studied in conference with the states, in sub-committees and committees, and in full session of the National Assembly with countless changes and modifications up to the last minute.
The man who was constantly in the breach throughout all this labour and who may be considered the principal author of the Constitution was Professor Preuss.
Before the Revolution he belonged to the Progressive Party; after which he joined the Democrats. Under-secretary of State for the Interior, on February 15, 1918; Minister of the Interior in Scheidemann’s cabinet of February, 1919; representative of the government at the National Assembly to discuss the Constitution when, in June, 1919, he left office; it was on him from the beginning to end that the chief burden of these discussions rested. Master of constitutional law he showed himself in politics essentially a realist. He fought stubbornly for the ideas he put forward in his first draft—the necessity of unifying the Reich and dismembering Prussia, the need of creating confidence in democracy, the superiority of a parliamentary régime. He fought for these to the very end with vigour of argument and such fertility of resources that the greater part of his ideas survived every attack. Certainly the definitive text of the Constitution is quite different from his original project; Preuss did not underestimate the forces and influences with which he had to deal; nevertheless he won great support on his principal issues and he is really the chief artisan of the work of Weimar.
The Constitution was adopted on July 31 by a vote of 262 for and 75 against. Those who voted against it were the German Nationalists, the German People’s Party, The Independents, The Bavarian Peasant Union, and several members of the Bavarian People’s Party, among them Dr. Heim.
It was promulgated and published on August 11, 1919, and became operative at once.
Having concluded peace and adopted the Constitution the National Assembly, it would seem, should have dissolved. But it did not. It had the authority to fix the duration of its mandate. The Assembly considered that its work was not finished on August 11, 1919, two tasks still remaining to be accomplished; the first of these to draw up and pass the principal laws needed for the application of the constitution. The latter in a number of its provisions necessitated the passing of a series of special laws and ordinary laws regulating details which, in the course of the deliberations on the Constitution, the members could not find time to enact or on which they had not been able to agree. Among such were laws regulating the election of the Reichstag and of the President of the Reich, laws on initiative and referendum, on the state of siege, the army, Workers Councils, and Economic Councils, laws regulating the transfer of railroads and postal systems of the various states to the control of the Reich, etc.