[Footnote 10: Austria and Prussia contain forty-two million inhabitants; the rest of Germany merely twelve million; the power of the two former stands consequently in proportion to that of the rest of Germany as forty-two to twelve or seven to two, while their votes in the diet stood not contrariwise, as two to seven, but as two to seventeen in the plenary assembly, and as two to fifteen in the lesser one.]
[Footnote 11: Aretin, who, at the time of the Rhenish confederation, insolently mocked and had denounced every indication of German patriotism, ventured to say in his "Alemannia," in the beginning of 1817, "'The patriotic colors,' 'the voice of the people,' 'nationality,' 'the extirpation of foreign influence,' are words now forgotten, magic sounds that have lost their power.">[
[Footnote 12: By Sack, the government commissary, who even confiscated the Rhenish Mercury, an earlier and unprohibited paper, and arrested the printer, against which Görres violently protested in a letter addressed to Sack. Görres made a triumphant defence before the tribunal at Treves, and observed, "Strange that the most violent enemy to France should seek the protection of French courts!">[
[Footnote 13: The names of these inquisitors were Schwarz, Grano,
Hörmann, Bar, Pfister, Preusschen, Moussel.]
[Footnote 14: Charles Follen, brother to the poet Louis Adolphus Follen, private teacher of law at Jena, a young man of great spirit and talent, who at that period exercised great influence over the youth of Germany, was wrecked, in 1840, in a steamer in North America and drowned.]
CCLXV. The New Constitutions
Germany had, notwithstanding her triumph, regained neither her ancient unity nor her former power, but still continued to be merely a confederation of states, bound together by no firm tie and regarded with contempt by their more powerful neighbors. The German confederation did not even include the whole of the provinces whose population was distinguished as German by the use of the German language. Several of the provinces of Germany were still beneath a foreign sceptre; Switzerland and the Netherlands had declared themselves distinct from the rest of Germany, which, hitherto submissive to France, was in danger of falling beneath the influence of Russia, who ceaselessly sought to entangle her by diplomatic wiles.
There were still, however, men existing in Germany who hoped to compensate the loss of the external power of their country by the internal freedom that had been so lavishly promised to the people on the general summons to the field. The proclamation of Calisch and the German federative act guaranteed the grant of constitutions. The former Rhenish confederated princes, nevertheless, alone found it to their interest to carry this promise into effect, and, in a manner, formed a second alliance with France by their imitation of the newly introduced French code and by the establishment, in their own territories, of two chambers, one of peers, the other of deputies, similar to those of France; measures by which, at that period of popular excitement, they also regained the popularity deservedly lost by them at an earlier period throughout the rest of Germany, the more so, the less the inclination manifested by Austria and Prussia to grant the promised constitutions. Enslaved Illuminatism characterizes this new zeal in favor of internal liberty and constitutional governments, to denote which the novel term of Liberalism was borrowed from France. Liberty was ever on the tongues—of the most devoted servants of the state. The ancient church and the nobility were attacked with incredible mettle—in order to suit the purposes of ministerial caprice. Prussia and Austria were loudly blamed for not keeping pace with the times—with the intent of favorably contrasting the ancient policy of the Rhenish confederation. None, at that period, surpassed the ministers belonging to the old school of Illuminatism and Napoleonism in liberalism, but no sooner did the deputies of the people attempt to realize their liberal ideas than they started back in dismay.
The first example of this kind was given by Frederick Augustus, duke of Nassau, as early as the September of 1814. Ibell, the president, who reigned with unlimited power over Nassau, drew up a constitution which has been termed a model of "despotism under a constitutional form." The whole of the property of the state still continuing to be the private property of the duke, and his right arbitrarily to increase the number of members belonging to the first chamber, and by their votes to annul every resolution passed by the second chamber, rendered the whole constitution illusory. Trombetta, one of the deputies, voluntarily renounced his seat, an example that was followed by several others.—The second constitution granted was that bestowed upon the Netherlands in 1815, by King William, who established such an unequal representation in the chambers between the Belgians and Dutch as to create great dissatisfaction among the former, who, in revenge, again affected the French party. This was succeeded, in 1816, by the petty constitutions of Waldeck, Weimar, and Frankfort on the Maine.— Maximilian, king of Bavaria, seemed, in 1817, to announce another system by the dismissal of his minister, Montgelas, and, in 1818, bestowed a new constitution upon Bavaria; but the old abuses in the administration remained uneradicated; a civil and military state unproportioned to the revenue, the petty despotism of government officers and heavy imposts, still weighed upon the people, and the constitution itself was quickly proved illusory, the veto of the first chamber annulling the first resolution passed by the second chamber. Professor Behr of Wurzburg, upon this, energetically protested against the first chamber, and, on the refusal of the second chamber to vote for the maintenance of the army on so high a footing, unless the soldiery were obliged to take the oath on the constitution, it was speedily dissolved.—In Baden, the Grandduke Charles expired, in 1818, after having caused a constitution to be drawn up, which Louis, his uncle and successor, carried into effect. Louis having, however, previously, and without the consent of the people, entered into a stipulation with the nobility, to whom he had granted an edict extremely favorable to their interests, Winter, the Heidelberg bookseller, a member of the second chamber, demanded its abrogation. The answer was, the dissolution of the chamber, personal inquisition and intimidation, and the publication of an extremely severe edict of censure, against which, in 1820, Professor von Rotteck of Freiburg, supported by the poet Hebel and by the Freiherr von Wessenberg, administrator of the bishopric of Constance, protested, but in vain.—At the same time, that is, in 1818, Hildburghausen, and even the petty principality of Lichtenstein, which merely contains two square miles and a population amounting to five thousand souls, also received a constitution, which not a little contributed to turn the whole affair into ridicule.—To these succeeded, in 1819, the constitutions of Hanover and Lippe-Detmold, the former as aristocratic as possible, completely in the spirit of olden times, solely dictated and carried into effect by the nobility and government officers. The sittings of the chambers, consequently, continued to be held in secret.—The dukes of Mecklenburg abolished feudal servitude, which existed in no other part of Germany, in 1820.—In Darmstadt, the constitution was granted by the good-natured, venerable Grandduke Louis (whose attention was chiefly devoted to the opera), after the impatient advocates, who had collected subscriptions in the Odenwald to petitions praying for the speedy bestowal of the promised constitution, had been arrested, and an insurrection that consequently ensued among the peasantry had been quelled by force.—Petty constitutions were, moreover, granted, in 1821, to Coburg, and, in 1829, to Meiningen. The Gotha-Altenburg branch of the ducal house of Saxony became extinct in 1825 in the person of Frederick, the last duke, the brother of Duke Augustus Emilius, a great patron of the arts and sciences, deceased 1822. Gotha, consequently, lapsed to Coburg, Altenburg to Hildburghausen, and Hildburghausen to Meiningen.
In Wurtemberg, the dissatisfaction produced by the ancient despotism of the government was also to be speedily appeased by the grant of a constitutional charter. The king, Frederick, convoked the Estates, to whom he, on the 15th of March, 1815, solemnly delivered the newly enacted constitution. But here, as elsewhere, was the government inclined to grant a mere illusory boon. The Estates rejected the constitution, without reference to its contents, simply owing to the formal reason of its being bestowed by the prince and being consequently binding on one side alone, instead of being a stipulation between the prince and the people, and moreover because the ancient constitution of Wurtemberg, which had been abrogated by force and in direct opposition to the will of the Estates, was still in legal force. The old Wurtemberg party alone could naturally take their footing upon their ancient rights, but the new Wurtemberg party, the mediatized princes of the empire, the counts and barons of the empire, and the imperial free towns, nay, even the Agnati of the reigning house,[1] all of whom had suffered more or less under Napoleon's iron rule, ranged themselves on their side. The deputy, Zahn of Calw, drew a masterly picture of the state of affairs at that period, in which he pitilessly disclosed every reigning abuse. The king, thus vigorously and unanimously opposed, was constrained to yield, and the most prolix negotiations, in which the citizen deputies, headed by the advocate, Weisshaar, were supported by the nobility against the government, commenced.