"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – The Camphausen Ministry

The Camphausen Ministry

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 4 of 4 June 1848]

Cologne
, 3 June. It is well known that
the French National Assembly of 1789 was preceded by an Assembly of Notables,
an assembly that was composed
by estates, like the Prussian
United Diet. In the decree by which Minister Necker convoked the National Assembly,
he referred to the demand for the convocation of the Estates-General pronounced by the
Notables. Minister Necker thus had a considerable
head start over Minister Camphausen. He did not need to wait for the storming of the Bastille and
the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in order subsequently, in doctrinaire fashion,
to link the old to the new, laboriously to preserve the
appearance
that France had arrived at the new constituent
assembly through the legal means of the old constitution. He had still other advantages. He was Minister of France and
not Minister of Lorraine and Alsace, whereas Herr Camphausen is not Minister
of Germany, but Minister of Prussia. And with all these advantages,
Minister Necker did not succeed in turning a revolutionary movement into a quiet
reform. The great illness was not to be cured with attar of roses. Still less
will Herr Camphausen alter the character of the movement through an artificial
theory that draws a straight line between his ministry and the old state of affairs
of the Prussian monarchy. The March Revolution, the German revolutionary
movement in general, can by no sleight of hand be transformed into more or less significant

intermediate incidents.
Was Louis Philippe elected King of the French
because
he was a Bourbon? Was he elected
although
he was a Bourbon?
It will be remembered that this question divided the parties shortly after the July Revolution.

What did the question itself prove? That the revolution was
called into question, that the interest of the revolution was not the interest of the class that
had come to power and of its political representatives.

The same significance attaches to the declaration by Herr Camphausen that his ministry came into the
world not
through
the March Revolution, but
after
the March Revolution.