[ [71] Vide p. 21.
It reserves to itself further the right to enact uniform civil and criminal codes and procedure, and to legislate regarding the press, associations, the public health, workmen and their protection, expropriation, socialization, trade, commerce, weights and measures, the issue of paper currency, banks and bourses, mining, insurance, shipping, railways, canals and other internal waterways, theaters and cinematographs. "In so far as there is necessity for uniform regulations," the Reich may legislate concerning the public welfare and for the protection of the public order and security.
The Reich reserves further the right to establish basic principles of legislation affecting religious associations, schools, manufacture, real estate, burial and cremation. It can also prescribe the limits and nature of the laws of the lands (states) affecting taxation, in so far as this may be necessary to prevent a reduction of the national income or a prejudicing of the Reich in its commercial relations, double taxation, the imposition of excessive fees which burden traffic, import taxes against the products of other states when such taxes constitute an unfair discrimination, and export premiums.
The constitution takes from the states the power to collect customs and excises. The federal government is empowered to exercise a direct control in the various lands over all matters falling under its competence. Not only are all the things enumerated above, and many more, reserved to the Reich, but there is no provision conferring expressly any powers whatever on the lands. Nor is there any provision reserving to the states powers not expressly reserved to the Reich or expressly prohibited to the states. Article 12, the only provision along this line, states merely that "so long and in so far as the Reich makes no use of its law-giving powers, the lands retain the right of legislating. This does not apply to legislation reserved exclusively to the Reich."
Article 13 provides that "the law of the Reich takes precedence over the law of the lands." In case of a disagreement between state and federal government as to whether a state law is in conflict with a federal law, an issue can be framed and placed before a federal supreme court. Preuss and some of his supporters wanted a provision expressly conferring upon the Supreme Court at Leipsic such power to rule on the constitutionality of legislation as has been assumed by the United States Supreme Court, but their views did not prevail.
The President of the Reich is elected by the direct vote of all Germans, male and female, who have attained the age of twenty. The term of office is seven years, and there is no limit to the number of terms for which the same President may be elected. Every German who has reached the age of thirty-five is eligible for the Presidency. There is no requirement that he be a natural born citizen, nor even as to the length of time that he must have been a citizen. A limitation of eligibility to natural born citizens, as in the United States constitution, was considered, but was rejected, mainly because it was expected at the time the constitution was adopted that Austria would become a German land, and such a provision would have barred all living Austrians from the Presidency. There was also opposition on general principles from the internationalists of the Left, the most extreme of whom would as soon see a Russian or a Frenchman in the President's chair as a German.
Articles 45 and 46, defining the powers of the President, take over almost bodily articles 11 and 18 of the imperial constitution, which defined the powers of the Kaiser. Like the Kaiser, the President "represents the Reich internationally"; receives and accredits diplomatic representatives; concludes treaties with foreign powers; appoints civil servants and officers of the army and navy, and is commander-in-chief of the country's military and naval forces. In only one important respect are the President's apparent powers less than the Kaiser's were: war can be declared and peace concluded only by act of the Reichstag and Reichsrat. Under the monarchy, a declaration of war required only the assent of the Federal Council and even this was not required if the country had been actually invaded by an enemy. The President has no power of veto over legislation, but he can order that any law be submitted to the people by referendum before it can go into effect. He can dissolve the Reichstag at any time, as could the Kaiser, but only once for the same reason—a limitation to which the Kaiser was not subject. He has the general power to pardon criminals. He can, if public safety and order be threatened, temporarily suspend most of the provisions of the constitution regarding freedom of speech and of the press, the right of assembly, the secrecy of postal and wire communications, freedom of organization, security against search and seizure in one's own dwelling, etc.
All these provisions appear to confer very extensive powers upon the President. His appointments of diplomatic representatives do not require the assent of a legislative body. He appoints his own Chancellor and, upon the latter's recommendation, the ministers of the various departments, also without requiring the assent of the legislative body. By referring a legislative enactment to a referendum vote he exercises what is in effect a suspensive veto.
Two articles of the constitution, however, render all these powers more or less illusory. Article 50 provides:
"All orders and decrees of the President, including those affecting the country's armed forces, require for their validity to be countersigned by the Chancellor or the competent minister. The official who countersigns accepts thereby the responsibility for the order or decree in question."