Karl Marx
The Municipal Council
* Cologne, November 20.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
No. 148, November 21, 1848

The Cologne municipal council has sent a petition to Berlin, in which it imploringly begs the king to dismiss the ministry in order to save the monarchy.

The municipal council of Cologne, or rather Herr Dumont and his associates, turns to the king, while the entire Rhine Province turns away from the king in order to turn to the Constituent Assembly. Herr Dumont, or rather the municipal council, wants to save the king, while the Rhine Province is thinking only of saving itself. As if the saving of the king were connected with the saving of the Rhine Province! At a moment when kings and emperors are saving themselves by states of siege and bombardments, the municipal council wants to save the king. Who called upon the municipal council to save the king and to send off a petition which is the most servile work of Cologne philistinism? Given the antecedents of the king and the Cologne municipal council, the latter is asking for nothing but kicks.

Had the municipal council of Cologne looked more to the resolution of the Berlin deputies than to the autocratic will and the saving of the king, it would long since have had the gates of the city of Cologne occupied in order to prevent the levying of taxes and to give force to the will of the Chamber. The Cologne municipal council must therefore be dismissed without delay. All judicial and tax authorities which do not energetically prevent the collection of taxes must be treated as traitors.

If the city of Cologne does not dismiss its municipal council and immediately send two new deputies to Berlin in place of those who have run away, it deserves the – knout.