No. 101, 13 September 1848

** Köln, 12 September. While the new Reich ministry, as we reported yesterday, is also being confirmed from other quarters and we may perhaps receive news of its definitive constitution by midday today, the ministerial crisis in Berlin continues. The crisis can be resolved in only two ways:

Either a Waldeck ministry, recognition of the authority of the German National Assembly, recognition of popular sovereignty;

Or a Radowitz-Vincke ministry, dissolution of the Berlin Assembly, annihilation of the revolutionary conquests, sham constitutionalism or even – the United Diet.

Let us not conceal it from ourselves: the conflict that has broken out in Berlin is a conflict not between the advocates of agreement and the ministers, it is a conflict between the Assembly, which for the first time sets itself up as a constituent body, and the Crown.

Everything turns on the question of whether there is the courage to dissolve the Assembly or not.

But has the Crown the right to dissolve the Assembly?

In constitutional states the Crown certainly has the right to dissolve the legislative chambers convened on the basis of the constitution, in the event of a collision, and to appeal to the people through new elections.

Is the Berlin Assembly a constitutional, legislative chamber?

No. It was convened for the “agreement of the Prussian state constitution with the Crown”, on the basis not of a constitution but of a revolution. It had its mandate to receive in no way from the Crown or its responsible ministers, but only from its electors and from itself. The Assembly was sovereign, as the legitimate expression of the revolution, and the mandate that Herr Camphausen issued to it in the electoral law of 8 April together with the United Diet was nothing but a pious wish on which the Assembly itself had to decide.

The Assembly at first more or less accepted the theory of agreement. It saw how, in doing so, it was cheated by ministers and the camarilla. It finally carried out an act of sovereignty; it set itself up for a moment as a constituent, no longer as an agreement, Assembly.

As the sovereign Assembly for Prussia, it had the fullest right to do so.

A sovereign Assembly, however, is dissolvable by no one, subject to the orders of no one.

But even as a merely agreement Assembly, even according to Herr Camphausen’s own theory, it stands as an equal beside the Crown. The two parties contract a state treaty, the two parties have equal shares of sovereignty – that is the theory of 8 April, the Camphausen-Hansemann theory, thus the official theory acknowledged by the Crown itself.

If the Assembly has equal rights with the Crown, then the Crown has no right to dissolve the Assembly.

Otherwise, consistently, the Assembly would likewise have the right to depose the King.

The dissolution of the Assembly would therefore be a coup d’état. And how one answers coups d’état has been shown by 29 July 1830 and 24 February 1848.

It will be said that the Crown could, after all, appeal once again to the same electors. But who does not know that today the electors would elect a quite different Assembly, an Assembly that would stand on far less ceremony with the Crown?

It is known: after the dissolution of this Assembly, only an appeal to quite different electors from those of 8 April is possible, and no other elections are any longer possible than those carried out under the sabre tyranny.

Let us therefore cherish no illusions:

If the Assembly is victorious, if it succeeds in carrying through a ministry of the Left, then the power of the Crown beside the Assembly will be broken, then the King will be no more than the paid servant of the people, then we shall stand once more on the morning of 19 March – provided the Waldeck ministry does not betray us, like so many before it.

If the Crown is victorious, if it succeeds in carrying through a ministry of the Prince of Prussia, then the Assembly will be dissolved, the right of association will be suppressed, the press will be gagged, an electoral law with a property qualification will be decreed, and perhaps, as has been said, even the United Diet will be conjured up once again – all under the protection of the military dictatorship, of cannon and bayonets.

Which of the two sides will be victorious will depend on the attitude of the people, particularly the attitude of the democratic party. The democrats may choose.

We stand on the 25th of July. Will they dare to issue the Ordonnances that are being forged in Potsdam? Will they provoke the people into making the leap from 26 July to 24 February in a single day?

There is certainly no lack of good will, but courage, courage!

No. 102, 14 September 1848

** Köln, 13 September. The crisis in Berlin has advanced a step further: the conflict with the Crown, which yesterday could only be described as unavoidable, has really occurred.

Our readers will find below the King’s reply to the ministers’ request for their dismissal. Through this letter the Crown itself steps into the foreground, takes the side of the ministers, and confronts the Assembly.

It goes still further: it forms a ministry outside the Assembly; it summons Beckerath, who sits on the extreme right in Frankfurt, and of whom the whole world knows in advance that he will never be able to count on a majority in Berlin.

The King’s letter is countersigned by Herr Auerswald. Let Herr Auerswald answer for pushing the Crown forward in this way to cover his ignominious retreat, for seeking, in one and the same breath, to crawl behind the constitutional principle vis-à-vis the Chamber and at the same time trampling the constitutional principle underfoot, by compromising the Crown and provoking a republic!

The constitutional principle! shout the ministers. The constitutional principle! shouts the Right. The constitutional principle! groans the hollow echo of the Kölnische Zeitung.

“The constitutional principle”! Are these gentlemen really so foolish as to believe that one can lead the German people out of the storms of the year 1848, out of the ruin of all historically transmitted institutions that daily threatens to crash down upon us, with the worm-eaten Montesquieu-De Lolme division of powers, with threadbare phrases and long-exploded fictions!

“The constitutional principle”! But it is precisely the gentlemen who wish to save the constitutional principle at any cost who ought first to realise that in a provisional state it can be saved only by energy!

“The constitutional principle”! But has not the vote of the Berlin Assembly, have not the collisions between Potsdam and Frankfurt, the disturbances, the reactionary attempts, the provocations of the soldiery, long shown that despite all phrases we are still standing on revolutionary ground, that the fiction that we are already standing on the ground of the constituted, the finished constitutional monarchy, leads to nothing but collisions, which have already brought the “constitutional principle” to the brink of the abyss?

Every provisional state following a revolution requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. We reproached Camphausen from the beginning for not acting dictatorially, for not immediately shattering and removing the remnants of the old institutions. While Herr Camphausen, then, was lulling himself with constitutional dreams, the defeated party strengthened its positions in the bureaucracy and in the army, and even ventured open struggle here and there. The Assembly was convened to agree on the constitution. It took its place as an equal beside the Crown. Two powers with equal rights in a provisional state! It was precisely this division of powers, with which Herr Camphausen sought to “save liberty”, it was precisely this division of powers that was bound to lead to collisions in a provisional state. Behind the Crown lurked the counter-revolutionary camarilla of the nobility, the military, and the bureaucracy. Behind the majority of the Assembly stood the bourgeoisie. The ministry sought to mediate. Too weak to represent decisively the interests of the bourgeoisie and the peasants and to overthrow at one blow the power of the nobility, the bureaucracy and the military leaders, too clumsy not to offend the bourgeoisie in its financial measures at every turn, it succeeded in nothing but making itself impossible with all parties and bringing about the collision it precisely wished to avoid.

In every state that is not yet constituted, it is not this or that principle that is decisive, but only the *salut public*, the public weal. The ministry could have avoided the collision of the Assembly with the Crown only by recognising exclusively the principle of the public weal, even at the risk of itself coming into collision with the Crown. But it preferred to keep itself “possible” in Potsdam. It never hesitated to take measures of public weal (*mesures de salut public*), dictatorial measures, against democracy. Or what else was the application of the old laws to political crimes, even after Herr Märker had already acknowledged that these paragraphs of the Prussian Common Law ought to be abolished? What else were the mass arrests in all parts of the kingdom?

But against the counter-revolution the ministry carefully refrained from intervening on grounds of the public weal!

And it was precisely from this laxity of the ministry towards the counter-revolution, which was becoming more threatening every day, that the necessity arose for the Assembly itself to decree measures of public weal. If the Crown as represented by the ministers was too weak, the Assembly itself had to intervene. It did this in the resolution of 9 August. It did so in a very mild way; it merely gave the ministers a warning. The ministers paid no heed.

But how could they have acceded to it! The resolution of 9 August tramples the constitutional principle underfoot, it is an encroachment by the legislative power upon the executive, it destroys the division and mutual control of powers that is so necessary in the interest of liberty, it turns the Assembly of Agreement into a National Convention!

And now a volley of threats, a thundering appeal to the fear of the petty bourgeoisie, a broad prospect of a reign of terror with the guillotine, progressive taxation, confiscation and the red flag.

The Berlin Assembly – a Convention! What irony!

But the gentlemen are not entirely wrong. If the government continues as hitherto, we shall have, in no very distant time, a Convention – not only for Prussia, but for the whole of Germany – a Convention upon which it will devolve to suppress, by all means, the civil war of our twenty Vendées and the inevitable Russian war. For the present, to be sure, we are only at the parody of the Constituent Assembly!

But how have these gentlemen ministers, who appeal to the constitutional principle, upheld this principle?

On 9 August they calmly let the Assembly disperse in the good faith that the ministers would carry out the resolution. They do not think of informing the Assembly of their refusal, still less of resigning their posts.

They take a whole month to think it over, and finally, when several interpellations are threatened, curtly inform the Assembly that it stands to reason that they would not carry out the resolution.

When the Assembly then directs the ministers to carry out the resolution nevertheless, they entrench themselves behind the Crown, bring about a rupture between the Crown and the Assembly, and thereby provoke a republic.

And these gentlemen still speak of the constitutional principle!

Let us sum up:

The unavoidable collision between two powers with equal rights in a provisional state has occurred. The ministry did not know how to conduct the government energetically enough; it omitted to take the necessary measures of public weal. The Assembly only did its duty when it called upon the ministry to do its duty. The ministry passes this off as an injury to the Crown, and compromises the Crown at the very moment of its retirement. Crown and Assembly stand face to face. The “agreement” has led to separation, to conflict. Perhaps it will be decided by force of arms.

The side with the most courage and consistency will be victorious.

No. 104, 16 September 1848

** Köln, 15 September. The ministerial crisis has once again entered a new stage. Not through the arrival and the futile efforts of the impossible Herr Beckerath, but through the military revolt in Potsdam and Nauen. The conflict between democracy and aristocracy has broken out in the very bosom of the Guard: the soldiers see in the resolution of the Assembly of the 7th their deliverance from the tyranny of the officers; they issue addresses of thanks to the Assembly, they cheer it. Thereby the sword has been wrested from the hands of the counter-revolution. Now they will not dare to dissolve the Assembly, and if they do not proceed to do so, nothing remains but to yield, to carry out the resolution of the Assembly, and to appoint a Waldeck ministry.

The soldiers’ revolt in Potsdam probably spares us a revolution.