Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4

by Wolfgang Menzel

The popular sense of justice and legality, never entirely suppressed throughout Germany, also gave fresh proof of its existence under the new state of affairs, partly in the endlessly drawn-out proceedings in the chambers, partly in the incredible number of new laws and regulations in the different states. Still, industriously as these laws have been compiled, no real, essential, German law, neither public nor private, has been discovered. The Roman and French codes battled with each other and left no room for the establishment of a code fundamentally and thoroughly German. The most distinguished champions of the common rights of the people against cabinet-justice, the tyranny of the police and of the censor, were principally advocates and savants. The Estates, as corporations, were scarcely any longer represented. The majority of governments, ruled by the principle of absolute monarchy and the chambers, ruled by that of democracy, had, since the age of philosophy, been unanimous in setting the ancient Estates aside. The nobility alone preserved certain privileges, and the Catholic clergy alone regained some of those they had formerly enjoyed; all the Estates were, in every other respect, placed on a level. The ancient and national legal rights of the people were consequently widely trenched upon.

The emancipation of the peasant from the oppressive feudal dues, and the abolition of the restraint imposed by the laws of the city corporations, which had so flagrantly been abused, were indubitably well intended, but, instead of stopping there, good old customs, that ought only to have been freed from the weeds with which they had been overgrown, were totally eradicated. The peasant received a freehold, but was, by means of his enfranchisement, generally laden with debts, and, while pride whispered in his ear that he was now a lord of the soil and might assume the costume of his superiors, the land, whence he had to derive his sustenance, was gradually diminished in extent by the systematic division of property. His pretensions increased exactly in the ratio in which the means for satisfying them decreased; and the necessity of raising money placed him in the hands of Jews. The smaller the property by reason of subdivision, the more frequently is land put up for sale, the deeper is the misery of the homeless outcast. The restoration of the inalienable, indivisible allod and of the federal rights of the peasant, as in olden times, would have been far more to the purpose.—Professional liberty and the introduction of mechanism and manufactural industry have annihilated every warrant formerly afforded by the artificer as master and member of a city corporation, and, at the same time, every warrant afforded to him by the community of his being able to subsist by means of his industry. Manufactures on an extensive scale that export their produce must at all events be left unrestricted, but the small trades carried on within a petty community, their only market, excite, when free, a degree of competition which is necessarily productive both of bad workmanship and poverty, and the superfluous artificers, unaided by their professional freedom, fall bankrupt and become slaves in the establishments of their wealthier[1] competitors. The restoration of the city guilds under restrictions suitable to the times would have been far more judicious.

The maintenance of a healthy, contented class of citizens and peasants ought to be one of the principal aims of every German statesman. The fusion of these ancient and powerful classes into one common mass whence but a few wealthy individuals rise to eminence would be fatal to progression in Germany. By far the greater part of the people have already lost the means of subsistence formerly secured to all, nay, even to the serf, by the privileges of his class. The insecure possession, the endless division and alienation of property, an anxious dread of loss, and a rapacious love of gain, have become universal. Care for the means of daily existence, like creeping poison, unnerves the population. The anxious solicitude to which this gives rise has a deeply demoralizing effect. Even offices under government are less sought for from motives of ambition than as a means of subsistence; the arts and sciences have been degraded to mere sources of profit, envious trade decides questions of the highest importance, the torch of Hymen is lit by Plutus, not at the shrine of Love; and in the bosom of the careworn father of a family, whose scanty subsistence depends upon a patron's smile, the words "fatherland" and "glory" find no responsive echo.

Among the educated classes this state of poverty is allied with the most inconsistent luxury. Each and all, however poor, are anxious to preserve an appearance of wealth or to raise credit by that means. All, however needy, must be fashionable. The petty tradesman and the peasant ape their superiors in rank, and the old-fashioned but comfortable and picturesque national costume is being gradually thrown aside for the ever-varying modes prescribed by Paris to the world. The inordinate love of amusements in which the lower classes and the proletariat, ever increasing in number, seek more particularly to drown the sense of misery, is another and a still greater source of public demoralization. The general habit of indulging in the use of spirituous liquors has been rightfully designated the brandy pest, owing to its lamentable moral and physical effect upon the population. This pest was encouraged not alone by private individuals, who gain their livelihood by disseminating it among the people, but also by governments, which raised a large revenue by its means; and the temperance societies, lately founded, but slightly stem the evil.

The public authorities throughout Germany have, it must be confessed, displayed extraordinary solicitude for the poor by the foundation of charitable institutions of every description, but they have contented themselves with merely alleviating misery instead of removing its causes; and the benevolence that raised houses of correction, poor-houses, and hospitals, is rendered null by the laxity of the legislation. No measures are taken by the governments to provide means for emigration, to secure to the peasant his freehold, to the artificer the guarantee he ought to receive and to give, and the maintenance of the public morals. The punishment awarded for immorality and theft is so mild as to deprive them of the character of crime, pamphlets and works of the most immoral description are dispersed by means of the circulating libraries among all classes, and the bold infidelity preached even from the universities is left unchecked. But—is not the thief taught morality in the house of correction? and are not diseases, the result of license, cured in the hospitals with unheard-of humanity?

Private morality, so long preserved free from contamination, although all has for so long conspired against the liberty and unity of Germany, is greatly endangered. Much may, however, be hoped for from the sound national sense. The memory of the strength displayed by Germany in 1813 has been eradicated neither by the contempt of France or Russia, by any reactionary measure within Germany herself, by social and literary corruption, nor by the late contest between church and state. The Customs' Union has, notwithstanding the difference in political principle, brought despotic Prussia and constitutional Germany one step nearer. The influence of Russia on the one hand, of that of France on the other, has sensibly decreased. The irreligious and immoral tendencies now visible will, as has ever been the case in Germany, produce a reaction, and, when the necessity is more urgently felt, fitting measures will be adopted for the prevention of pauperism. The dangers with which Germany is externally threatened will also compel governments, however egotistical and indifferent, to seek their safety in unity, and even should the long neglect of this truth be productive of fresh calamity and draw upon Germany a fresh attack from abroad, that very circumstance will but strengthen our union and accelerate the regeneration of our great fatherland, already anticipated by the people on the fall of the Hohenstaufen.

[Footnote 1: Because more skilful.—Trans.]

CCLXXIV. German Emigrants

The overplus population of Germany has ever emigrated; in ancient times, for the purpose of conquering foreign powers; in modern times, for that of serving under them. In the days of German heroism, our conquering hordes spread toward the west and south, over Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, England, and Iceland; during the Middle Ages, our mail-clad warriors took an easterly direction and overran the Slavonian countries, besides Prussia, Transylvania, and Palestine; in modern times, our religious and political refugees have emigrated in scarcely less considerable numbers to countries far more distant, but in the humble garb of artificers and beggars, the Pariahs of the world. Our ancient warriors gained undying fame and long maintained the influence and the rule of Germany in foreign lands. Our modern emigrants have, unnoted, quitted their native country, and, as early as the second generation, intermixed with the people among whom they settled. Hundreds of thousands of Germans have in this manner aided to aggrandize the British colonies, and Germany has derived no benefit from the emigration of her sons.

The first great mass of religious refugees threw itself into Holland and into the Dutch colonies, the greater part of which have since passed into the hands of the British. The illiberality of the Dutch caused the second great mass to bend its steps to British North America, within whose wilds every sect found an asylum. William Penn, the celebrated Quaker, visited Germany, and, in 1683, gave permission to some Germans to settle in the province named, after him, Pennsylvania, where they founded the city of German town.[1] These fortunate emigrants were annually followed by thousands of exiled Protestants, principally from Alsace and the Palatinate. The industry and honesty for which the German workmen were remarkable caused some Englishmen to enter into a speculation to procure their services as white slaves. The greatest encouragement was accordingly given by them to emigration from Germany, but the promises so richly lavished were withdrawn on the unexpected emigration of thirty-three thousand of the inhabitants of the Palatinate, comprising entire communes headed by their preachers, evidently an unlooked and unwished for multitude. These emigrants reached London abandoned by their patrons and disavowed by the government. A fearful fate awaited them. After losing considerable numbers from starvation in England, the greater part of the survivors were compelled to work like slaves in the mines and in the cultivation of uninhabited islands; three thousand six hundred of them were sent over to Ireland, where they swelled the number of beggars; numbers were lost at sea, and seven thousand of them returned in despair, in a state of utter destitution, to their native country. A small number of them, however, actually sailed for New York, where they were allotted portions of the primitive forests, which they cleared and cultivated; but they had no sooner raised flourishing villages in the midst of rich cornfields and gardens, than they were informed that the ground belonged to the state and were driven from the home they had so lately found. Pennsylvania opened a place of refuge to the wanderers.[2]