Karl Marx 
The Conference at Baden-Baden 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 5989, 4. Juli 1860 

The Conference at Baden-Baden. 

From Our Own Correspondent. 
Berlin, June 18, 1860. 

Just before Louis Bonaparte's arrival at Baden-Baden, the little town was 
flooded with French mouchards, policemen, and gensdarmes, masqueraded 
into artists and dandies. From the railway station where he alighted, they 
followed him to the Hotel of the Stephanie Bader, where he took up his 
residence, huzzaing outrageously on his several exhibitions before the 
public, although their cries of Vive l'Empereur were regularly drowned in 
the hisses of the German spectators. The repulsively vulgar physiognomies 
of Generals Fleury and Failly inthe Emperor's suite, somewhat softened the 
effect produced by the appearance of the hero with the eyes of the owl and 
the nose of the parrot, who, true to his mimic mission, had donned the 
historical gray coat. His private conversation with the Prince Regent lasted 
only forty-five minutes; on all his other interviews with the Hohenzollern 
he had simultaneously to encounter the whole lot of little German potentates, 
so that there was hardly an opportunity offered for the transaction of serious 
business. Before his departure from Paris he had given the signal for the issue 
of About's pamphlet, the title page of which had, however, to be altered from 
"Napoleon III. et la Prusse", into "La Prusse en 1860". Before leaving 
Baden-Baden, he conveyed to the King of Hanover the grand cross of the 
Legion of Honor, a significant act, since Borries, the Hanoverian Minister, 
had only some weeks ago raised the general indignation of Germany by 
stating that Hanover would sooner go over to France than yield to Prussian 
supremacy. 

The real business of the Baden-Baden conference will not commence 

The Conference at Baden-Baden 

before next week, when the ministers of most German States, together with 
Gen. von Rzikowski, the first military commissioner of Austria at Frankfort, 
and the president of the Federal military commission, are to join the Prince 
Regent. The main questions to be decided turn upon the organization ofthe 
German Federal army and steps to be taken against Denmark, who, in her 
course of open and spiteful violation of the Federal laws is known to be 
goaded by France and Russia. In order to explain the present Northern crisis, 
it will be necessary to survey briefly the different phases which the last 
conflict between Denmark and the German Diet has run through. 
On October 2,1855, as you willremember, the King of Denmark octroyed 
a whole State Constitution (Gesamtstaatsverfassung), which not only equal- 
ized the law of succession to the throne for the kingdom and the German 
Duchies, but created, under the name of the Imperial Council (Reichsrath), 
a sort of general legislature for the common affairs of the whole monarchy. 
Together with this whole State Constitution, there were octroyed new and 
separate constitutions for Denmark proper, for Schleswig, and for the 
German Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg (provincial constitutions in 
unison with the whole State Constitution), and a so-called "normal financial 
budget", determining the quota which each part of the whole monarchy had 
to pay, not for its own administration, but into the common exchequer. The 
"normal" budget of 1855 was promulgated on the express condition that the 
repective quota imposed on the different countries should never be augment- 
ed without the sanction of the popular estates. In introducing the new finan- 
cial law of 1855, the Central Government had exhausted all its ingenuity for 
overcharging the German Duchies to the profit of the Danish kingdom. The 
revenues from the public domains of the Duchies, although by a notification, 
dated January 28,1852, they had been acknowledged to belong to the Provin- 
cial Administration, were made over to the common exchequer. A con- 
siderable number of direct taxes which had always formed an exclusive 
resource of the provincial treasury, were, moreover, on false pretenses, laid 
claim to by the whole-state-chest. Not only was the standard most un- 
favorable to the Duchies, that of population excepted in the re-partition of 
the common taxes, but the Duchies were even bound to pay two per cent 
beyond the quota payable according to that standard. Thus, apart from the 
revenues derived from the domains, and of direct taxes arbitrarily classed 
under that rubric, the Duchy of Holstein was alone to contribute the sum 
of 756,193 rix-dollars for the common expenses of the entire monarchy. 
The octroyed whole-state constitution, with its normal budget, its Imperial 
Council, and its new-fangled provincial charters, raised an immense outcry 
throughout the Duchies. By the new law of succession to the throne they 
found themselves separated from Germany and bound over to the destinies 

Kal Marx 

of Denmark. By the institution of the Imperial Council (Reichsrath), in which 
they could never fancy to sway but a small minority of votes, they would, 
in point of fact, forfeit their national independence, and become subjected 
to the dictates of a Danish Legislature. By the normal budget, at last, they 
were unfairly taxed for swelling the material resources of their antagonists 
at Copenhagen. 

The consequent agitation in the Duchies lasted for more than two years, 
and their provincial Diets had repeatedly, but vainly, appealed to the German 
Confederation, when the latter resolved at last to interfere. Here it ought to 
be recollected that the King of Denmark in his quality as Duke of Holstein 
and Lauenburg, is a member of the German Confederation, and bound to 
obey the resolutions of the German Diet. By a resolution of February 11, 
1858 the German Diet declared the whole State Constitution of October 2, 
1855, to be null and void as far as the German Duchies were concerned— 
simultaneously it called upon the King of Denmark to take immediately such 
steps as would restore the relations between the Duchies and the whole 
monarchy to a state conformable to the federal laws and the promises made 
by the King himself in 1851-'52. On February 25, 1858, the German Diet 
published another decree by which the King of Denmark was strictly forbid- 
den to promulgate any new laws contrary to its own resolution of Feb- 
ruary 11, and to alter anything in the status quo before the settlement of the 
constitutional question. On March 26, 1858, the Danish King lodged at the 
German Diet a declaration to the effect that he was willing to conform to 
the resolution of February 25, but reserved to himself to decide what ad- 
ministrative innovations he might introduce by virtue of the now superseded 
old provincial charter. In reply to this communication the German Diet, on 
May 20, 1858, passed another resolution rejecting the interpretation put by 
the King on the decree of February 25, interdicting again any change, ad- 
ministrative or legislative, to the prejudice of the Duchies, and holding out 
the menace of a mihtary federal execution to take place in Holstein, if the 
Diet should become informed of any infringement of its former resolutions. 
On August 12, 1858, the German Diet went one step further, by the actual 
appointment of a committee for dispatching federal troops to Holstein and 
Lauenburg, for carrying out "the mihtary execution", as it is called in the 
official language. The Danish Government thought it now fit apparently to 
give way. By royal patent of November 6,1858, the whole State Constitution 
of 1855, while maintained for the Kingdom of Denmark and the Duchy of 
Schleswig, was abrogated inthe German Duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg. 
The first six paragraphs of the provincial charter, octroyed to Holstein in 
1855, and relating to the whole State Constitution, were also cut off, and the 
Imperial Council or Reichsrath was purged of its members for Holstein and 

The Conference at Baden-Baden 

Lauenburg. On March 10, 1859, the Provincial Diet of Holstein addressed 
a memorandum to the King, expostulatory of the grievances of the Duchies, 
and insisting that, until the definitive settlement of their relations with 
Denmark, no new laws concerning the common affairs of the whole 
monarchy should be promulgated unless they had been also laid before and 
obtained the sanction of the Holstein Estates. The Danish Government not 
deigning to heed these remonstrances, the Holstein Estates again appealed 
to the German Diet, which then renewed its menace of a military execution 
in the Duchies. On Nov. 2, 1859, the Danish Government gave a solemn 
promise to the German Diet, firstly, that it was about summoning a Chamber 
of Delegates in order to settle the pending difficulties between the Duchies 
and the monarchy, and secondly, that IV2 per cent should be remitted of the 
quota fixed by the "normal budget" upon Holstein. The German Diet eagerly 
caught at this opportunity to stay again, "provisionally", by decree of 
March 6,1860, the threatened military execution, though the conditions put 
by the federal resolution of Feb. 11, 1858, were as far as ever from being 
fulfilled. However, the Diet declared simultaneously this new respite to be 
given to Denmark on the express understanding only, that during the interim, 
and before the constitutional settlement, all projects of law presented to the 
Imperial Council, relating to the common affairs of the whole State, and 
especially to financial matters, should also be laid before the Estates of 
Holstein and Lauenburg for their consent. This federal decree of March 6, 
1860, winds up with the distinct declaration that any disobedience on the part 
of the Danish Government would this time be directly punished with the 
military execution in the Duchies. The Committee appointed to that purpose 
was even ordered to keep its forces ready for such a case. Well, the Danish 
Government, said to have meanwhile concluded a secret treaty with France, 
not only withdrew its own proposal for a meeting of delegates, but, by a law 
passed on May 15,1860, through the Danish Imperial Council, and never laid 
before the Estates of the Duchies, imposes a new financial budget for 
1860-61. By virtue of this the Holstein contribution to the whole State 
Exchequer is to be raised from 756,193 rix dollars to 908,880. Denmark wants 
money for the new maritime fortifications of Copenhagen, and, finding the 
provincial treasury of the Duchies well filled, thought fit to provisionally lay 
hands upon it, relying on the open consent of the Danish "Reichsrath" and 
the secret support of France and Russia. Now, it is evident that the collision 
has reached a point which leaves the German Diet no alternative but that 
of abdicating its powers or realizing its threats. In the Schleswig case the 
question is somewhat obscured by international complications. In this 
Holstein case the question regards only the rights of the German Con- 
federation over its own members.