Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849

The Trial of the Rhenish District Committee of Democrats

by Karl Marx

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 231 and 232
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
1994
(Karl Marx's Speech Delivered on February 8, 1849)

Published also in a separate pamphlet entitled Zwei politische Prozesse,
Koln, 1849, Verlag der Expedition der Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung.

Gentlemen of the jury, if this action had been brought before December
5, I could have understood the charge made by the public prosecutor. Now,
after the 5th of December, I do not understand how he dares to invoke against
us laws which the Crown itself has trampled in the dirt.

On what does the public prosecutor base his criticism of the National
Assembly and the resolution not to pay taxes? On the laws of April 6 and
8, 1848. And what did the government do on December 5, when it arbitrarily
imposed a constitution and a new electoral law on the country? It tore
up the laws of April 6 and 8, 1848. These laws are no longer valid for
the supporters of the government, so why should they still be valid for
the opponents of the government? On December 5 the government took its
stand on a revolutionary basis, namely, on a counter- revolutionary basis.
It is now confronted only by revolutionaries or accomplices. Even the mass
of citizens who act on the basis of the existing law, who uphold the existing
law in face of infringements of that law, have been turned into rebels
by this government. Before December 5 opinion concerning the removal of
the National Assembly, its dispersal and the introduction of a state of
siege in Berlin could have been divided. After December 5 ' it is a well-established
fact that these measures were intended to usher in the counterrevolution
and that therefore every means could be used against a group that itself
no longer recognized the conditions under which it governed and consequently
could no longer be recognized as a government by the country. Gentlemen,
the Crown could have preserved at least the semblance of legality, but
it has not deigned to do so. It could have dispersed the National Assembly
and then let the cabinet come forward and tell the country: "We have dared
to carry out a coup d'etat — circumstances have forced us to do it. We
have disregarded the convention of the law, but there are moments of crisis
when the very existence of the state is at stake. At such moments there
is only one inviolable law-the existence of the state. There was no valid
constitution when we dispersed the Assembly. Therefore no constitution
could be infringed. But there existed two organic laws — those of April
6 and 8, 1848. Actually there is only one organic law, the electoral law.
We ask the country to carry through elections in accordance with this law.
We, the responsible government, will then appear before the Assembly that
has emerged from these primary elections. This Assembly, we trust, will
recognize that the coup d'etat was an act of deliverance necessitated by
circumstances. It will subsequently sanction the coup d'etat. It will declare
that we infringed a legal form in order to save the country. Let it pass
judgment on us.

If the cabinet had done this, it would have had a semblance of
right to arraign us. The Crown would have kept a semblance of legality,
but it could not or would not do it.

The March revolution, as seen by the Crown, was a harsh fact.
One harsh fact can be erased only by another harsh fact. By rejecting new
elections on the basis of the law of April 1848, the cabinet renounced
its own responsibilities, thereby repudiating also the bar towards which
it was responsible. At the very outset it turned the appeal of the National
Assembly to the people into a mere pretense, a fiction, a deception. By
inventing a first Chamber based on the property qualification as an integral
part of the Legislative Assembly, the cabinet tore up the organic laws,
departed from the legal basis, falsified the elections and prevented the
people from passing any judgment on the "act of deliverance" of the Crown.

And so, gentlemen, the fact cannot be denied, and no future historian
will deny it — the Crown has made a revolution, it has overthrown the
existing legal system, it cannot appeal to the laws it has itself so scandalously
annulled. After successfully carrying out a revolution one can hang one's
opponents, but one cannot convict them. Defeated enemies can be put out
of the way, but they cannot be arraigned as criminals. After a revolution
or counter-revolution has been consummated the invalidated laws cannot
be used against the defenders of these laws. This would be a cowardly pretense
of legality which you, gentlemen, will not sanctify by your verdict.

I have already told you, gentlemen, that the government has falsified
the sentence which the people passed on the "act of deliverance of the
Crown". The people nevertheless has already decided against the Crown and
for the National Assembly. The elections to the second Chamber are the
only lawful elections because they alone were based on the law of April
8, 1848. Practically all the deputies who were for the refusal to pay taxes
were re-elected to the second Chamber, many of them even two or three times.
Schneider 11, my codefendant, is himself deputy for Cologne. Thus, the
question of the National Assembly's right to vote for the refusal to pay
taxes has virtually been decided already by the people.

But quite irrespective of this most authoritative judgment, you
will agree with me, gentlemen, that in the present case no crime in the
ordinary sense of the word has been committed, in this case no infringement
of the law falling within your jurisdiction has occurred at all. Under
ordinary conditions the existing laws are enforced by the public authorities;
whoever infringes these laws or prevents the public authorities from enforcing
them is a criminal. In the present case one public authority has infringed
the law, another public authority, it makes no difference which, has upheld
it. The struggle between these two political powers lies neither within
the sphere of civil law, nor within the sphere of criminal law. The question
of who was in the right, the Crown or the National Assembly, is a matter
for history. All the juries, all the courts of Prussia cannot decide it.
Only one power can supply the answer — history. I do not understand, therefore,
how, on the basis of the Code penal, we could be placed in the dock.

That this was a struggle between two powers, and only power can
decide between two powers — that, gentlemen, has been declared by both
the revolutionary and the counterrevolutionary press. This was proclaimed
even by the organ of the government a short time before the struggle was
decided. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, the organ of the present government,
clearly realized this. A few days before the crisis it said approximately
the following: It is no longer a question of right but of power, and the
old monarchy by the grace of God will show that it still has this power.
The Neue Preussische Zeitung correctly understood the situation. Power
against power. Victory would decide for one or the other. The counter-revolution
carried the day but we have seen only the first act of the drama. The struggle
in England lasted over twenty years. Charles I came out on top several
times and ended up on the scaffold. Who, gentlemen, can guarantee to you
that the present cabinet and the officials who acted and continue to act
as its tools will not be convicted of high treason by this Chamber or its
successors?

Gentlemen, the public prosecutor has tried to base his accusation
on the laws of April 6 and 8. I have been compelled here to demonstrate
to you that it is these laws which acquit us. But I make no secret of the
fact that I have never recognized these laws and never will. They never
had any validity for the deputies elected by the people, still less could
they prescribe the course of the March revolution.

How did the laws of April 6 and 8 come into being? By agreement
between the government and the United Provincial Diet. It was an attempt
to maintain continuity with the old legal system and to play down the revolution
which had done away with that system. Men like Camphausen thought it important
to preserve a semblance of legal continuity. And how did they preserve
this semblance? By a series of obvious and absurd contradictions. Let us
for a moment adopt the old legal point of view. Was not the very existence
of Minister Camphausen, a responsible minister, a minister who had not
climbed the bureaucratic ladder, unlawful? The position of Camphausen,
the responsible Prime Minister, was unlawful. This officer, who does not
exist in law, convenes the United Provincial Diet to have it pass laws
it was not legally competent to pass. This inconsistent and self-contradictory
playing with formalities was called legal advance, or maintenance of the
legal basis!

But let us leave aside the form, gentlemen. What was the United
Provincial Diet? It represented old decaying social relations. It was against
these relations that the revolution was directed. And the representatives
of the vanquished society are asked to endorse organic laws designed to
recognize, guide and organize the revolution against this old society.
What an absurd contradiction! The Diet was overthrown together with the
old monarchy.

On this occasion we are confronted by the so-called legal basis.
It is the more necessary for me to deal with this point since we are justly
regarded as opponents of the legal basis, and since the laws of April 6
and 8 owe their existence to the formal recognition of the legal basis.

The Diet represented primarily big landed property. Big landed
property was indeed the foundation of medieval, feudal society. Modern
bourgeois society, our own society, is however based on industry and commerce.
Landed property itself has lost all its former conditions of existence,
it has become dependent on commerce and industry. Agriculture, therefore,
is carried on nowadays on industrial lines, and the old feudal lords have
now become producers of cattle, wool, corn, Beatrice, spirits, etc., i.e.,
people who trade in industrial products just as any other merchant. However
much they may cling to their old prejudices, they are in fact being turned
into bourgeois, who manufacture as much as possible and as cheaply as possible,
who buy where they can get goods at the lowest price and sell where they
can obtain the highest price. The mode of living, production and income
of these gentlemen therefore gives the lie to their traditional pompous
notions. Landed property, as the predominant social factor, presupposes
a medieval mode of production and commerce. The United Provincial Diet
represented this medieval mode of production and commerce which had long
since ceased to exist, and whose protagonists, though they clung to the
old privileges, likewise enjoyed and exploited the advantages of the new
society. The new bourgeois society, grounded on an entirely different foundation,
on a changed mode of production, was bound to seize also political power,
which had to be wrenched from the hands of those who represented the interests
of a declining society, a political power, whose whole structure had been
built up on the soil of entirely different material conditions of society.
Hence the revolution. The revolution was consequently directed as much
against the absolute monarchy, the supreme political expression of the
old society, as against the representatives of the estates, who stood for
a social system that had been long ago destroyed by modern industry or,
at most, for the presumptuous ruins of the dissolved estates which bourgeois
society was overtaking and pushing into the background more and more every
day. How then was the idea conceived to allow the United Provincial Diet,
the representative of the old society, to dictate laws to the new society
which asserted its rights through the revolution?

Allegedly in order to maintain the legal basis. But what do you
understand by maintaining the legal basis? To maintain laws belonging to
a bygone social era and framed by representatives of vanished or vanishing
social interests, who consequently give the force of law only to these
interests, which run counter to the public needs. Society is not founded
upon the law; this is a legal fiction. On the contrary, the law must be
founded upon society, it must express the common interests and needs of
society — as distinct from the caprice of the individuals — which arise
from the material mode of production prevailing at the given time. This
Code Napoleon, which I am holding in my hand, has not created modern bourgeois
society. On the contrary, bourgeois society, which emerged in the eighteenth
century and developed further in the nineteenth, merely finds its legal
expression in this Code. As soon as it ceases to fit the social conditions,
it becomes simply a bundle of paper. You cannot make the old laws the foundation
of the new social development, any more than these old laws created the
old social conditions.

They were engendered by the old conditions of society and must
perish with them. They are bound to change with the changing conditions
of life. To maintain the old laws in face of the new needs and demandsof social development is essentially the same as hypocritically upholding
the out-of-date particular interests of a minority in face of the up-to-date
interests of the community. This maintenance of the legal basis aims at
asserting minority interests as if they were the predominant interests,
when they are no longer dominant; it aims at imposing on society laws which
have been condemned by the conditions of life in this society, by the way
the members of this society earn their living, by their commerce and their
material production; it aims at retaining legislators who are concerned
only with their particular interests; it seeks to misuse political power
in order forcibly to place the interests of a minority above the interests
of the majority. The maintenance of the legal basis is therefore in constant
conflict with the existing needs, it hampers commerce and industry, it
prepares the way for social crises, which erupt in political revolutions.

That is what adherence to the legal basis and the maintenance
of the legal basis really mean. Relying on these phrases about the legal
basis, which arise either from conscious deceit or unconscious self- deception,
the United Provincial Diet was convoked, and this Diet was made to frame
organic laws for the National Assembly the need for which was created by
the revolution and which owed its existence to the revolution. And on the
strength of these laws the National Assembly is to be judged!

The National Assembly represented modern bourgeois society as
against feudal society, which is represented in the United Provincial Diet.
It was elected by the people for the purpose of independently enacting
a constitution to fit the conditions of life, which had come into conflict
with the old political organization and laws. It was thus from the very
beginning a sovereign, constituent assembly. The fact that it nevertheless
condescended to the views of the conciliators, was mere formal courtesy
towards the Crown, mere ceremony. I need not here go into the question
whether the Assembly — as far as the people are concerned — had the right
to take a stand for conciliation. It considered that a collision with the
Crown should be averted by a display of goodwill on both sides.

One thing is certain, however — that the laws of April 6 and
8, which were agreed with the United Provincial Diet, were formally invalid.
The only material significance they have is that they state and lay down
the conditions under which the National Assembly could really express the
sovereign will of the people. The laws passed by the United Provincial
Diet were merely a formula by which the Crown was saved the humiliation
of having to proclaim: I have been defeated!

Now, gentlemen of the jury, I shall examine more closely the speech
of the public prosecutor.

He says:

"The Crown ceded part of the power which had been wholly in its hands.
Even in the ordinary course of things a deed of renunciation does not go
beyond what is clearly stated in the words of renunciation. The law of
April 8, 1848, neither grants the National Assembly the right to refuse
to vote taxes, nor stipulates that Berlin must necessarily be the seat
of the National Assembly."

Gentlemen, power lay broken in the hands of the Crown, and the Crown gave
up power in order to save the fragments. You will remember that immediately
after his accession to the throne, the King formally pledged his word of
honor at Konigsberg and Berlin not to concede constitutional government.
You will remember that when opening the United Provincial Diet in 1847
the King solemnly swore that he would not allow a piece of paper to come
between him and his people. After the March events of 1848, and even in
the imposed constitution, the King proclaimed himself a constitutional
monarch. He has put this paper, this piece of abstract, outlandish flummery,
between himself and his people. Will the public prosecutor dare to assert
that in conceding the agreement or the constitution, the King voluntarily
contradicted in so manifest a way his own solemn declarations, that in
the eyes of the whole of Europe he voluntarily committed so glaring an
inconsistency! The King made the concessions which the revolution compelled
him to make. Neither more nor less.

The popular analogy which the public prosecutor has made unfortunately
proves nothing. It is true, that if I renounce anything, I renounce only
what I have expressly renounced. If I made you a gift, it would indeed
be impudent if, on the basis of the deed of gift, you tried to compel me
to undertake further obligations. But after the March events it was the
people that made the gift and the Crown which received it. Obviously, the
nature of the gift must be interpreted in accordance with the intentions
of the giver and not those of the receiver, i.e., in accordance with the
intentions of the people and not those of the Crown.

The absolute power of the Crown was shattered. The people had
won the day. The two sides concluded a truce and the people was cheated.
The public prosecutor himself has taken pains to demonstrate at some length
that the people was deceived. To challenge the right of the National Assembly
to refuse to vote taxes, the public prosecutor has explained to you in
detail that if there was something of this kind in the law of April 6,
1848, it was certainly no longer to be found in the law of April 8, 1848.
The interval of two days was thus used to deprive the representatives of
the people of the rights which had been conceded to them two days earlier.
Could the public prosecutor have more strikingly compromised the honesty
of the Crown, could he have more irrefutably proved the intention to deceive
the people?

The public prosecutor says further:

"The right to adjourn and prorogue the National Assembly is a prerogative
of the executive power recognized in all constitutional countries."

As to the right of the executive to transfer the meeting place of the legislative
chambers, I would like to ask the public prosecutor to cite even a single
law or example in support of his claim. In England, for instance, under
an old historical privilege, the King could convoke Parliament anywhere
he pleased. There is no law stating that London is the legal seat of Parliament.
As you know, gentlemen, in England the most important political liberties
are generally sanctioned not by Statute Law but by Common Law; such, for
instance, is the case with the freedom of the press. But should an English
ministry take it into its head to transfer Parliament from London to Windsor
or Richmond, it is sufficient to put the idea into words to realize how
impossible it is.

True, in countries that have a constitutional government, the
Crown has the right to prorogue Parliament. But it must not be forgotten
that on the other hand all constitutions specify for how long the chambers
can be prorogued and when they have to be summoned again. — Prussia has
no constitution, one still has to be drafted; no legal time-limit for summoning
a prorogued chamber exists, consequently no prorogation right of the Crown
exists. — Otherwise the Crown could prorogue the Chamber for ten days,
for ten years, or for ever. How could one be sure that the chambers would
ever be summoned or allowed to meet for any length of time? The existence
of the chambers juxtaposed with the Crown would be left to the discretion
of the Crown, the legislative power — if one could speak of legislative
power in this context — would have become a sham.

Gentlemen, this example shows where any attempt to compare the
conflict between the Prussian Crown and the Prussian National Assembly
with the conditions obtaining in constitutional countries leads to. It
leads to the maintenance of the absolute monarchy. On the one hand, the
rights of a constitutional executive power are conferred upon the Crown,
on the other, there is no law, no tradition, no organic institutions able
to impose on it the restrictions proper to a constitutional executive power.
The representatives of the people are expected to play the role of a constitutional
chamber in relation to an absolute monarchy!

Is there any need to explain that in the case under consideration
it was not a matter of an executive power vis-a-vis a legislative power,
that the constitutional division of powers cannot be applied to the Prussian
National Assembly and the Prussian Crown? Let us disregard the revolution
and consider only the official theory of agreement. Even according to this
theory two sovereign powers confronted each other. That is beyond any doubt.
One of these two powers was bound to break the other. Two sovereign powers
cannot function simultaneously, side by side, in one state. This is an
absurdity, like the squaring of the circle. Material force had to decide
the issue between the two sovereign powers. But it is not our task here
to go into the question of whether agreement was possible or impossible.
It is sufficient that two powers entered into relations with each other
in order to conclude an agreement. Camphausen himself admitted that agreement
might not be achieved. From the rostrum he spoke to the advocates of agreement
of the danger that faced the country if they did not come to terms. The
danger was implied in the initial relationship between the conciliatory
National Assembly and the Crown, and afterwards an attempt is made to hold
the National Assembly responsible for this danger by denying this initial
relationship and by turning the Assembly into a constitutional chamber!
It is an attempt to overcome a difficulty by abstracting from it.

Gentlemen, I think I have shown you that the Crown had no right
either to adjourn or to prorogue the Assembly of conciliators.

But the public prosecutor did not confine himself to examining
whether the Crown had the right to adjourn the National Assembly; he has
tried to prove that this adjournment was expedient. "Would it not have
been expedient," he exclaims, "if the National Assembly had obeyed the
Crown and moved to Brandenburg?" According to the public prosecutor, the
expediency of such an act was due to the position of the Chamber itself.
The Chamber was not free in Berlin, and so forth.

But is it not obvious what purpose the Crown pursued in ordering
this removal? Had not the Crown itself divested all officially advanced
reasons for the removal of any semblance of veracity? It was not a question
of freedom of deliberation, but of whether the Assembly be dissolved and
a constitution imposed, or whether a spurious Assembly be created by summoning
more docile representatives. When, - unexpectedly, a sufficient number
of deputies arrived in Brandenburg to form a quorum, the pretense was abandoned
and the National Assembly was dissolved.

Incidentally, it goes without saying that the Crown had no right
to declare the National Assembly either free or unfree. No one but the
National Assembly itself could decide whether it had the necessary freedom
of deliberation or not.

It would be most convenient for the Crown if it could declare
that the National Assembly was not free, that it was irresponsible and
to ban it, whenever the Assembly passed resolutions the Crown disliked.

The public prosecutor has also spoken about the government's duty
to protect the dignity of the National Assembly against the terrorism of
the Berlin populace.

This argument sounds like a satire on the government. I will not
speak here of its treatment of individuals, of men who, after all, were
the elected representatives of the people. It sought to humiliate them
in every possible way, they were prosecuted in a most infamous way and
a sort of wild chase was organized against them. But let us leave aside
individuals. How was the dignity of the National Assembly and of its work
maintained? -Its archives were given over to the military who used the
documents comprised in the various departments, the royal messages, draft
laws and preliminary studies, as spills to light pipes with, burned them
in stoves, and trampled on them.

Not even the formalities of a legal warrant were observed; the
archives were seized without even an inventory being drawn up.

It was part of a plan to destroy this work so dear to the people,
in order to make it easier to vilify the National Assembly and to quash
the planned reforms which were abhorrent to the government and aristocracy.
Is it not simply ridiculous to assert after all this that the government
transferred the National Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg out of tender
concern for its dignity?

Now I come to the statement of the public prosecutor regarding
the formal validity of the resolution to refuse payment of taxes.

The public prosecutor says that in order to make the resolution
on the tax refusal formally valid, the Assembly should have submitted it
to the Crown for sanctioning.

But, gentlemen, the Crown itself did not face the Assembly, it
was represented by the Brandenburg cabinet. Consequently, according to
the absurd claim of the public prosecutor, the Assembly should have reached
an agreement with the Brandenburg cabinet to proclaim that cabinet guilty
of high treason and to prevent it from collecting taxes. What meaning can
this demand have other than that the National Assembly should submit unconditionally
to every request of the Brandenburg cabinet?

Another reason why the tax refusal resolution was formally invalid,
says the public prosecutor, was that a motion can become law only after
the second reading.

On the one hand, when dealing with the !national Assembly they
ignored important forms of procedure which ought to have been binding and,
on the other, they expected the National Assembly to observe even the most
unimportant formalities. As simple as that! A bill objectionable to the
Crown is passed in the first reading, after which the second reading is
prevented by force of arms, and the Bill remains invalid because there
was no second reading. The public prosecutor does not take into considerationthe exceptional state of affairs that obtained when, threatened with bayonets
in their meeting hall, the deputies passed this resolution. The government
commits one arbitrary act after another. It flagrantly violates the principal
laws, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Civil Guard Law. [162] It arbitrarily
establishes an unlimited military despotism under the guise of martial
law. It sends the deputies to the devil, and while on the one hand impudently
infringing all laws, it, on the other hand, demands the most punctilious
observation of even the rules of procedure.

Gentlemen, I do not know whether it is deliberate misrepresentation
— I am far from assuming this on the part of the public prosecutor —
or merely ignorance when he says: "The National Assembly did not want any
negotiations" and it "did not seek any negotiations".

If the people blame the Berlin National Assembly for anything,
it is for its desire for negotiations. If the deputies themselves regret
anything, it is their desire for reconciliation. It was this desire for
reconciliation which gradually alienated the Assembly from the people,
caused it to lose all its positions, and finally, when it was not backed
by the nation, exposed it to the attacks of the Crown. When at last it
wanted to make a stand it found itself alone and powerless, precisely because
it had not made that stand and asserted itself at the right time. It first
manifested this desire for reconciliation when it renounced the revolution
and sanctioned the theory of agreement, when it degraded itself by turning
from a revolutionary National Assembly into a dubious society of conciliators.
It carried the weakness for negotiation to extremes when it accepted Pfuel's
pseudo-recognition of Stein's army order as valid. The publication of this
army order was itself a farce, since it could only be regarded as a comical
echo of Wrangel's army order. Nevertheless, instead of going beyond it,
the Assembly snatched at the attenuated interpretation of the Pfuel cabinet,
which made the order meaningless. To avoid any serious conflict with the
Crown, the Assembly accepted the feeble semblance of a demonstration against
the old reactionary army as a real demonstration. It seriously pretended
to regard what was not even a pseudo-solution of the conflict as the real
solution of the conflict. So little did the Assembly want to fight, so
keen was it on negotiations — and the public prosecutor describes it as
pugnacious and quarrelsome.

Need I mention another symptom showing the conciliatory nature
of this Chamber? You will remember the agreement between the National Assembly
and Pfuel about the law suspending commutations. If the Assembly was unable
to destroy the enemy in the army, then it was above all necessary to win
a friend in the peasantry. But it refrained from attempting even this.
To negotiate, to avoid a conflict with the Crown, to avoid it at any cost-that
was the Assembly's chief concern, which it placed above even its own self-preservation.
And this Assembly is blamed for not wanting to negotiate, not attempting
to negotiate!

It tried to negotiate even when the conflict had broken out. You
know the pamphlet by Unruh, [163] a man of the Centre. You will have seen
from it that every attempt was made to avoid a clash; that deputations
were sent to the Crown and were turned away; that some deputies tried to
argue with the ministers and were superciliously and arrogantly rebuffed;
that the Assembly offered to make concessions and that these were derided.
Even at the time when it could only be a matter of Preparing for war, the
Assembly still wanted to make peace. And the public prosecutor accuses
this Assembly of not wanting to negotiate and not attempting to negotiate!

The Berlin National Assembly clearly nursed extravagant illusions
and did not understand its own position and its conditions of existence,
when before the conflict and even during the conflict it believed that
an amicable arrangement and reconciliation with the Crown was still possible
and worked towards it.

The Crown did not want and could not want reconciliation. Gentlemen
of the jury, let us not deceive ourselves concerning the nature of the
struggle which began in March and was later waged between the National
Assembly and the Crown. It was not an ordinary conflict between a cabinet
and a parliamentary opposition, it was not a conflict between men who were
ministers and men who wanted to become ministers, it was not a struggle
between two political parties in a legislative chamber. It is quite possible
that members of the National Assembly belonging to the minority or the
majority believed that this was so. The decisive factor, however, is not
the opinion of the deputies, but the real historical position of the National
Assembly as it emerged both from the European revolution and the March
revolution it engendered. What took place here was not a political conflict
between two parties within the framework of one society, but a conflict
between two societies, a social conflict, which assumed a political form;
it was the struggle of the old feudal bureaucratic society with modern
bourgeois society, a struggle between the society of free competition and
the society of the guilds, between the society of landownership and the
industrial society, between a religious society and a scientific society.
The political expression corresponding to the old society was the Crown
by the grace of God, the bullying bureaucracy and the independent army.
The social foundation corresponding to this old political power consisted
of privileged aristocratic landownership with its enthralled or partially
enthralled peasants, the small patriarchal or guild industries, the strictly
separated estates, the sharp contradiction between town and country and,
above all, the domination of the countryside over the town. The old political
power — the Crown by the grace of God, the bullying bureaucracy, the independent
army — realized that its essential material basis would disappear from
under its feet, as soon as any change was made in the basis of the old
society, privileged aristocratic landownership, the aristocracy itself,
the domination of the countryside over the town, the dependent position
of the rural population and the laws corresponding to these conditions
of life, such as the parish regulations, the criminal law. The National
Assembly made such an attempt. On the other hand that old society realized
that political power would be wrenched from its hands, as soon as the Crown,
the bureaucracy and the army lost their feudal privileges. The National
Assembly wanted to abolish these privileges. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the army, the bureaucracy and the nobility joined forces in urging
the Crown to effect a coup de main, and it is not surprising that the Crown,
knowing that its own interests were closely interlinked with those of the
old feudal bureaucratic society, allowed itself to be impelled to a coup
d'etat. For the Crown represented feudal aristocratic society, just as
the national Assembly represented modern bourgeois society. The conditions
of existence in modern bourgeois society require that the bureaucracy and
the army, which controlled commerce and industry, should become their tools,
be reduced to mere organs of bourgeois intercourse. This society cannot
tolerate that restrictions are placed on agriculture by feudal privileges
and on industry by bureaucratic tutelage. This is contrary to free competition,
the vital principle of this society. It cannot tolerate that foreign trade
relations should be determined by considerations of the palace's international
policies instead of by the interests of national production. It must subordinate
fiscal policy to the needs of production, whereas the old state has to
subordinate production to the needs of the Crown by the grace of God and
the patching up of the monarchical walls, the social pillars of this Crown.
Just as modern industry is indeed a leveller, so modern society must break
down all legal and political barriers between town and country. Modern
society still has classes, but no longer estates. Its development lies
in the struggle between these classes, but the latter stand united against
the estates and their monarchy by the grace of God.

The monarchy by the grace of God, the supreme political expression,
the supreme political representative of the old feudal bureaucratic society,
is consequently unable to make any sincere concessions to modern bourgeois
society. Its own instinct of self-preservation, and the society which backs
it and on which it leans will constantly impel it to retract the concessions
it has made, to maintain its feudal character and to risk a counter-revolution.
Counter-revolution is a constantly recurrent condition of existence for
the Crown after every revolution.

On the other hand, modern society, too, cannot rest until it has
shattered and abolished the political power, the traditional official power,
by which the old society is forcibly preserved. For the rule of the Crown
by the grace of God is the rule of antiquated social strata.

Hence no peace is possible between these two societies. Their
material interests and needs bring them into mortal combat. One side must
win, the other must lose. That is the only possible reconciliation between
them. Neither can there be peace between the supreme political representatives
of these two societies, between the Crown and the representatives of the
people. Thus, the National Assembly had only the choice of either yielding
to the old society or standing up to the Crown as an independent force.

Gentlemen, the public prosecutor has described the refusal to
Pay taxes as a measure "which shakes the foundations of society". The refusal
to pay taxes has nothing to do with the foundations of society.

Generally speaking, why do taxes, the granting or the refusal
of taxes, play such an important role in the history of constitutionalism?
The reason is very simple. Just as serfs purchased privileges from the
feudal lords with ready money, so did entire nations purchase privileges
from feudal monarchs with ready money. Monarchs needed money for their
wars with foreign nations and especially for their struggle against the
feudal lords. The more trade and industry developed the greater grew their
need for money. But the third estate, the middle classes, grew to the same
extent and disposed of increasing financial resources; and in the same
degree they purchased liberties from the monarchs by means of taxes. To
make sure of these liberties they retained the right at definite intervals
to renew the monetary obligations, i.e., the right to vote or to refuse
to vote taxes. You can trace the details of this development especially
well in English history.

In medieval society, therefore, taxes were the only bond between
the emerging bourgeois society and the ruling feudal state, a bond which
compelled the state to make concessions to bourgeois society, to meet its
needs and adjust itself to its growth. In modern states this right to grant
and refuse taxes has been turned by bourgeois society into a means of controlling
the government, the body administering its common interests.

You will find therefore that partial tax refusal is an integral
part of every constitutional mechanism. This type of tax refusal operates
whenever a budget is rejected. The current budget is voted only for a definite
period; moreover after being prorogued the chambers must be reconvened
after a very short interval. It is thus impossible for the Crown to make
itself independent. Rejection of a budget means a definite tax refusal
if the cabinet does not win a majority in the new chamber or if the Crown
does not nominate a cabinet in accordance with the wishes of the new chamber.
The rejection of a budget is therefore the parliamentary form of a refusal
to pay taxes. This form could not be employed in the conflict under consideration
because a constitution did not yet exist, but had first to be produced.

But a refusal to pay taxes as it occurred here, a refusal which
not only rejects a new budget but prohibits even the payment of current
taxes, is by no means exceptional. It happened very frequently in the Middle
Ages. Even the old German Imperial Diet and the old feudal Diets of Brandenburg
passed resolutions refusing to pay taxes. Nor is there any lack of examples
in modern constitutional states. The refusal to pay taxes led in Britain
in 1832 to the downfall of Wellington's cabinet. And in Britain it was
not Parliament which decided to refuse taxes, but the people which proclaimed
and carried out this decision on its own authority. Britain, however, is
the historic land of constitutionalism.

Far be it from me to deny that the English revolution, which brought
Charles I to the scaffold, began with a refusal to pay taxes or that the
North American revolution, which ended with the Declaration of Independence
from Britain, started with a refusal to pay taxes. The refusal to pay taxes
can be the harbinger of unpleasant events in Prussia too. It was not John
Hampden, however, who brought Charles I to the scaffold, but only the latter's
own obstinacy, his dependence on the feudal estates, and his presumptuous
attempt to use force to suppress the urgent demands of the emerging society.
The refusal to pay taxes is merely a sign of the dissidence that exists
between the Crown and the people, merely evidence that the conflict between
the government and the people has reached a menacing degree of tensity.
It is not the cause of the discord or the conflict, it is merely an expression
of this fact. At the worst, it leads to the overthrow of the existing government,
the existing political system. The foundations of society are not affected
by this. In the present case, moreover, the refusal to pay taxes was a
means of society's self-defense against a government which threatened its
foundations.

Finally, the public prosecutor accuses us of having gone further
in the incriminating document than the National Assembly itself. He says,
"For one thing, the National Assembly did not publish its resolution."
Gentlemen, am I to give a serious reply to the accusation that the decision
not to pay taxes was not even published in the Statute Book?

Furthermore, unlike us, the National Assembly did not incite to
the use of force and in general did not take a revolutionary stand, but
wanted to remain on the basis of the law.

The public prosecutor previously described the National Assembly
as unlawful, now he considers it lawful — in each case to present us as
criminals. But if the collection of taxes is declared unlawful, am I not
obliged to resist by force the exercise by force of this unlawful action?
Even from this standpoint, therefore, we were entitled to repel force by
force. Incidentally, it is quite correct that the National Assembly wanted
to act on a purely legal basis, by resorting to passive resistance. Two
roads were open to it, the revolutionary road — it did not take it, those
gentlemen did not want to risk their necks — or the refusal to pay taxes
which did not go beyond passive resistance. It took the second road. But
to give effect to its refusal to pay taxes the people would have had to
take a revolutionary stand. The conduct of the National Assembly could
by no means serve as a criterion for the people. The National Assembly,
as such, has no rights; the people has merely entrusted it with the defense
of its own rights. If the Assembly does not act in accordance with the
mandate it has received, then this mandate lapses. The people then takes
the stage itself and acts on its own authority. If, for example, a national
assembly were to sell itself to a treacherous government, the people would
have to kick them out, both the government and the assembly. If the Crown
makes a counter-revolution, the people has the right to reply with a revolution.
It does not require the sanction of a national assembly to do this. The
fact that the Prussian government is attempting a treasonable assault has
been stated by the National Assembly itself.

Gentlemen of the jury, to sum up briefly, the public prosecutor
cannot charge us under the laws of April 6 and 8, 1848, when these laws
have been torn up by the Crown. These laws by themselves are not decisive,
as they were arbitrarily concocted by the United Provincial Diet. The resolution
of the National Assembly regarding the refusal to pay taxes had the force
of law both formally and materially. We went further than the National
Assembly in our appeal. This was our right and our duty.

In conclusion, I repeat that we have seen only the first act of
the drama. The struggle between the two societies, the medieval and the
bourgeois society, will again be waged in political forms. As soon as the
Assembly meets, the same conflicts will arise again. The Neue Preussische
Zeitung, the organ of the government, already prophesies — the same people
have voted again, that means the Assembly will have to be dispersed a second
time.

Whatever new path the new National Assembly may choose, the inevitable
result will be — either complete victory of the counter-revolution or
a new successful revolution. It may be that the victory of the revolution
is possible only after the counter-revolution is consummated.

Two Political Trials

Neue Rheinische Zeitung Index |
Speeches from Pamphlet ‘Two Political Trials’