I received your esteemed letter of April 10* last evening. 

Although in Your Excellency’s last letter you were of the 
opinion that because of the application in 1845 it would be of no 
effect in my case even if the amnesty should have cancelled the 
loss of the status of a Prussian due to absence for ten years, Your 
Excellency now, in view of my latest arguments, takes rather the 
opposite opinion that the amnesty, because as such it allegedly can 
only contain a pardon of penalties, cannot cancel the loss of the 
status of a Prussian, no matter for what reason that loss has ever been 
incurred. 

In order not to prejudice my rights, I am forced to remark that 
this letter, according to the legal opinion of the undersigned, 
would present 1) a partial annulment of the Royal amnesty, 2) a 
non-recognition of the Federal Diet and its decisions and hence a 
violation of the German constitutional principles, as laid down in 
the Federal Act,**’ 3) finally, an equally emphatic negation of all 
public law in Prussia. 

Mindful, however, of the practical purpose by which I am 
guided, I will not weary Your Excellency by a demonstration of 
these three legally unassailable theses, but agree, in the sense in 
which I expressed it to Your Excellency at the end of my last 

4 See this volume, pp. 353-54.— Ed. 
b Of March 30, 1861.— Ed. 

358 Appendices 

memorandum,’ to receive what is my right and what I must hold 
fast as such, even in the form of a new naturalisation from Your 
Excellency. 

Being compelled to leave here in haste because of news from my 
family, I applied early yesterday in this sense in omnem eventum> 
for the new naturalisation at the police precinct of my district.‘ 

At the same time, I respectfully inform Your Excellency that 
because of my departure I empower Mr. F. Lassalle, of this city, to 
receive the naturalisation certificate for me, to make and take note 
on my behalf of all the necessary applications and steps in this 
matter, and in general to exercise my rights to the same extent as 
is in my power. 

Respectfully requesting Your Excellency to kindly address the 
final decision to Mr. F. Lassalle, of this city, I remain, 

Your Excellency’s obedient servant 
Dr Karl Marx? 

Berlin, April 11, 1861