The point at which the pamphlet strikes, therefore, albeit in a purely theoretical way, is the three-class system of elections. It makes no attack upon the propertied classes, whose accumulated wealth, on the contrary, I am repeatedly at pains to define as wholly incontestable, inoffensive, inviolable and perfectly lawful.
This three-class system of elections is one of our political institutions.
Now, this being the case, why has not the public prosecutor indicted me under section 101 of the criminal code, "for having exposed the measures of the State to hatred and to contempt?" To be sure, if the prosecutor had chosen to make this charge, I should have known how to answer him. To go into this matter today would be superfluous, for I am not accused of this offense, and my defense would be drawn out endlessly if I were to defend myself against charges that have never been brought against me.
But why, among all impossible charges, does the public prosecutor choose to bring precisely the most impossible? Why does he make this substitution as to the point of my attack? I point out that the three-class system of elections is an injustice because it makes an essentially innocent difference in wealth a legal qualification for participation in the direction of public affairs; whereupon this envenomed accusation is brought against me that I have instigated the unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied.
Is there, then, no remedy, Gentlemen, against such a public defamation of one's name and fame?
Can we say that among us the introduction, of the three-class system of elections is to be laid at the door of the propertied classes or the commonalty? Something of that kind might be said of the French bourgeoisie. In France the property qualification and rating was introduced as long ago as the revolutionary Assemblée Constituante. But the like has not been done by the German.
When the Prussian bourgeoisie came into power through the March revolution of 1848 it introduced universal and equal suffrage by the law of the 8th of April, 1848. The German bourgeoisie at St. Paul's Church, Frankfort, enacted universal equal suffrage.
The three-class system of elections which we now have, was arbitrarily imposed, imposed by the government.
Now, why does the public prosecutor shelter the government behind the backs of the Prussian bourgeoisie? A tout seigneur tout honneur![57]
It is the Prussian government, not the propertied classes, that must for all time and in the eyes of all people bear the responsibility of this arbitrarily imposed three-class system of elections.