"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – The Civic Guard Bill

The Civic Guard Bill

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung” No. 51, July 21, 1848]

Cologne
, July 20. The civic guard
is dissolved
, that is the
main paragraph
of the Bill on the
Establishment of the Civic Guard, although it only appears at the end of the same as § 121,
in the modest form:

“Through the formation of the civic guard in accordance with the provisions of this law,
all armed corps presently belonging to the civic guard or existing alongside it are dissolved.”

The dissolution of the corps not directly belonging to the civic guard has been
commenced without further ado. The dissolution of the civic guard itself can only
be accomplished under the guise of its
reorganisation
.

In § 1, legislative decency compelled the insertion of the traditional constitutional
phrase:

“The civic guard has the
purpose
of

protecting
constitutional freedom
and the legal order.”

To correspond to the
“essence of this purpose,”
however, the civic guard may neither
think about public affairs, nor speak of them, nor deliberate or decide on them (§ 1), nor
assemble, nor take up arms (§
6), nor give any sign of life at all, save with high official
permission. It is not the civic guard that “protects” the constitution against the authorities,
but the authorities who protect the constitution against the civic guard. It must therefore
(§ 4) “comply” blindly “with the requisitions of the authorities” and abstain from all
meddling “in the functions of the communal, administrative or judicial authorities,”
as from any possible carping. If it “refuses”
passive obedience, the Herr District President may “suspend
it from
service”
for four weeks (§ 4). Should it even arouse the most high

displeasure, a “Royal Decree” can “suspend” it from
service “for six months” or even order its “dissolution,”
which is to be followed by a re-formation on the spot only after six months
(§ 3). Thus (§ 2) “in
every commune of the kingdom a
civic guard shall exist,” that is to say, to the extent that the Herr District President or the
King does not find himself prompted to decree the opposite in every commune.
If state affairs do not belong to the “purview” of the civic guard, the civic
guard, on the contrary, belongs “to the purview of the Minister of the Interior,” i.e., the
Minister of Police
,
who is naturally its superior and, “in accordance with the essence of his purpose,” the faithful Eckart
of “constitutional freedom” (§ 5). To the extent that the civic guard is not commanded by
the Herr District President and the other Herren officials for “the protection of
constitutional freedom,” i.e., to carry out what the Herren superiors think fit, i.e., ordered
to
service
, its peculiar life-task consists in carrying out the
service regulations
drawn up by a royal
colonel. The service regulations are its Magna Charta,
for whose protection and exercise it is formed, as it were. Long live the

service regulations
! Enrolment in the civic guard gives
occasion, finally, to make every Prussian “between the completion of his 24th year and before he has passed his 50th
year of life” take the following
oath
:

“I swear loyalty and obedience to the King, the constitution and the laws of the kingdom.”

Poor constitution! How cramped, how bashful, how philistine-modest, with what
a subaltern bearing it stands there, between the King and the laws. First
comes the royalist oath, the oath of the dear faithful, and then comes the constitutional
oath, and at the end comes an oath that makes no sense at all, unless it be the
legitimist sense, that alongside the laws emanating from the constitution there still exist other
laws that spring from royal plenitude of power. And now the
good citizen belongs, from head to toe, to the “purview of the Ministry of the Interior.”

The worthy man has received the arms and the uniform, on condition
of first renouncing his primary political rights, the right of association, etc.
His task, to “protect constitutional freedom,” is fulfilled in accordance with the “essence
of its purpose” by his carrying out the commands of the authorities blindly,
by his exchanging the ordinary civil liberty, tolerated even under the absolute
monarchy,

for the passive, will-less and self-less obedience of the soldier. A fine school
in which, as Herr Schneider said in the Agreement Assembly <See
“The Debate on the Jacoby Motion,” pp. 223-25
>, to train up
the republicans of the future! What has become of our
citizen
? A
cross between a Prussian gendarme and an English constable. Yet
for all his losses he is consoled by the
service regulations
and the
consciousness of obeying orders. Instead of dissolving the army into the people, was it not more original to
dissolve the people into the army?

It is a truly bizarre spectacle, this
transformation of constitutional phrases into
Prussian facts
.

If Prussianism condescends to become constitutional, then
constitutionalism must also condescend to become Prussian. Poor constitutionalism! Good
Germans! For so long they have wailed that the
“most sacred”
promises are not
fulfilled. Soon they will know only
one
fear, the fear of the
fulfilment of the sacred promises! The people will be punished, par où il a
péché <whereby it has sinned>. You

demanded press freedom
? You shall be
punished
with press freedom and receive a censorship without
censors, a censorship by the public prosecutor, a censorship by a law which finds it in the
“essence of the purpose” of the press to concern itself with everything, only not with the
authorities, the infallible authorities, a censorship of prison terms and fines.
As the hart panteth after fresh water, so shall ye pant after the good old,
much-reviled, much-misunderstood censor, the last Roman, under whose ascetic
providence ye led so comfortable and danger-free a life.

You
demanded a people’s militia
? You shall receive
service regulations
. You shall be
put at the disposal of the authorities, you shall be drilled militarily and
schooled in passive obedience until the tears come to your eyes.

Prussian acumen has sniffed out that every new constitutional
institution offers the most interesting occasion for new penal laws, new
regulations, new disciplinary measures, new surveillance, new chicanery and a
new bureaucracy.

More constitutional demands! More constitutional demands! cries the
Ministry of Action. For every demand we have an
action
!

Demand
: Every citizen shall be armed for the protection of “constitutional
freedom.”

Answer
: From now on, every citizen belongs to the purview of the Ministry of the
Interior.

It would be easier to recognise the Greeks again
under the animal forms into which Circe transformed them, than the constitutional institutions
under the phantasmagoria in which
Prussianism
bewitches them, and its

Ministry of Action
.

After the
Prussian reorganisation of Poland, the Prussian reorganisation of the
civic guard
!

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung” No. 52, July 22, 1848]

Cologne
, 21 July. We have seen that the “general provisions” of the Bill on
the
Civic Guard
boil down to this: the civic guard
has ceased to exist. We shall briefly go into some other sections of the
bill, in order to distil out the spirit of the “Ministry of Action,” and here too
we must proceed selectively with the raw material of the pseudonymous institution. A
large number of §§ presuppose the new communal and district ordinance, a new
administrative division of the monarchy, etc., all entities which, as is well known, still lead a hidden life only in the
mystery-fraught womb of the Ministry of Action.
Why, then, has the Ministry of Action allowed its Bill on the Reorganisation of
the Civic Guard to precede the promised bills on the communal and district
ordinance, etc.?

In Section III we find two service lists, the service list of the respectable and
the service list of those liable to civic guard service who are supported from public funds
(§§ 14 [and 16]). The army of officials, of course, is not counted among the persons supported from public funds. It is well known that in
Prussia they form the truly productive class. The paupers, now, like the slaves in
ancient Rome, are “only to be called upon for service in extraordinary cases.” If the paupers, on account of their lack of civic independence, are no more called to protect
“constitutional freedom” than the lazzaroni of Naples,
do they deserve to occupy a subordinate position in this new institution of passive obedience?

But apart from the paupers, we find an incomparably more important distinction between
those liable to civic guard service who can
pay
and those who cannot.

One remark beforehand. According to § 53,

“the civic guard shall wear a uniform, simple
service dress throughout the whole country, which shall be determined by the King. The service dress must not be such
as to give occasion for confusion with the army.”

Naturally! The dress must be such
that the army of the civic guard and the civic guard stand
opposite the people, and that on such occasions as cutting down, fusillading
and similar warlike manoeuvres, no confusion may occur. The
service
dress
as
such
, however, is just as indispensable as the
service
list, as the

service
regulations. The livery of freedom is precisely the
service
dress.
This livery gives occasion to increase considerably the cost of equipping a civic guardsman,
and the increased cost of this equipment gives a welcome
occasion to dig an unbridgeable gulf between the
bourgeoisie
of the civic guard and the
proletarians
of the
civic guard.

Let us hear:

§ 57. “For the service dress, where such exists, for
the service insignia and for the arms, each member of the civic guard must
provide
at his own expense
. The commune is, however, obliged to procure these articles at its
expense in such quantity as is required for the equipment
of that part of the
actually serving personnel
which
cannot bear the costs from its own means
.”

§ 59. “The commune retains the right of property <in the bill: property> in the equipment articles procured by it and
may have them kept in special places outside
the period of their use for service
.”

Thus all those who cannot equip themselves militarily from head to toe
– and this is the great majority of the Prussian population, the
entirety of the workers, a large part of the middle class –,
all of them

are legally
disarmed
“outside the period of their use for service,” while the

bourgeoisie
of the civic guard remains at all times in possession of arms and service dress.
Since the same bourgeoisie, in the form of the “commune,” “may have all the
equipment articles procured by it kept in special places,”
it finds itself not only in possession of its
own
arms, it also finds itself in
possession of the arms of the civic guard proletariat, and it
“may”

and
“will”
, should political collisions distasteful to it arise,
refuse to hand over the arms, even for
“use in service.”
Thus the political privilege of capital is restored in the most unprepossessing, but also in the most effective, in the most
decisive form. Capital possesses the privilege of arms
vis-à-vis the man of small means, like the medieval feudal baron
vis-à-vis his serf.

In order that the privilege may operate in all its exclusiveness, according to § 56
only

"in the countryside and in towns
with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, the arming of the civil guardsmen with pike or side-arm
is sufficient and, with this type of armament, only a
service badge
to be determined by the colonel is required instead of the service uniform."

In all towns
with
more than
5,000 inhabitants, the
service uniform
must increase
the property qualification
that actually first confers fitness for militia service, and with it
the number of the civil guard proletariat. Just as the service uniform and arms are only
lent
to this proletariat, i.e. to the greater part of the population,
so the right of militia service as a whole is only
lent
to it, its existence as a militiaman
is only a lent one, and – beati possidentes, fortunate are those who possess! The moral
discomfort in which a
lent coat
envelops the individual, and moreover a
lent coat that, as with the soldier, passes around from one body to another in turn
– this moral discomfort is naturally the prime requirement
for the Romans who are called upon to “protect constitutional
freedom”. But, in contrast, will not the proud self-esteem of the

solvent
civil guard increase, and what more could one want?

And even these conditions, which render the right of militia service illusory for the greatest part of the
population, are, in the interest of the propertied part, of
privileged capital, themselves encased once more within new, still more restrictive conditions.

For the municipality need only keep the equipment items in stock
for the “actually serving” part of the insolvent force. According
to § 15, the situation of this “actually serving” part is as follows:

“In all municipalities in which the total number of men available for current
service exceeds the twentieth part of the population, the
municipal council has the right to limit the actually serving force to this part of the
population. If it makes use of this authority, it
must arrange a rotation of service in such a way
that all men available for current service take their turn
one after another. However, at each
rotation not more than one-third may leave at one time;
also, all age groups must be called up simultaneously
in proportion to the number of civil guardsmen present in each.”

And now let one calculate for what tiny fraction of the civil guard proletariat
and of the total population the equipment items are
really
procured by the municipality?

In our article of yesterday we saw the
Ministry of Action
reorganising the constitutional
institution of the civil guard in the spirit of the old Prussian,

the bureaucratic state. Only today do we see it
at the height of its mission, see it shaping this institution of the civil guard in the
spirit of the July Revolution, in the spirit of Louis-Philippe, in the spirit of the epoch which places the crown on capital and

with drums and trumpets

pays homage to its young splendour

<H. Heine, “Berg-Idylle”, poem from the “Harzreise”>.

A word to the Ministry of Hansemann-Kühlwetter-Milde. A few days ago Herr Kühlwetter
issued a circular against the machinations of the reaction to all
government presidents. Whence this phenomenon?

The Ministry of Action wants to establish the rule of the bourgeoisie by
simultaneously concluding a compromise with the old police and feudal state. In
this double-edged, contradictory task it sees at every moment the rule
of the bourgeoisie, which has yet to be founded, and its own existence being overtaken by the reaction in the
absolutist, in the feudal sense – and it will succumb to it. The
bourgeoisie cannot conquer its own rule without
for the time being having the whole
people as an ally, without therefore appearing more or less democratically.

But to want to combine the epoch of Restoration with the epoch of July, to let the bourgeoisie, which is still wrestling
with absolutism, feudalism, petty Junkerdom, the rule of soldiers and bureaucrats, already
exclude
the people, already subjugate it and cast it aside
– that is squaring the circle, that is a historical problem upon which even a
Ministry of Action, even a triumvirate Hansemann-Kühlwetter-Milde, will founder.

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 54 of 24 July 1848]

Cologne
**, 23 July. The section of the draft
Civil Guard law

on the
“Election and Appointment of Superiors”
is a veritable
labyrinth
of

electoral methods
. We wish to play Ariadne and give the modern Theseus – the
honourable Civil Guard – the thread that will guide them
through the labyrinth. But the modern Theseus will be as ungrateful as the ancient one, and
after killing the Minotaur, will faithlessly leave his Ariadne – the press – sitting on the rock of
Naxos.

Let us number the various passages of the labyrinth.

Passage I. Direct election.

§ 42. “The leaders of the civil guard up to and including the captain
are
elected
by the
actually serving
civil guardsmen.”

Side passage.
“The actually serving
civil guardsmen” constitute only a small part of the actually “militia-fit”
force. Compare § 15 and our article of the day before yesterday.

The “direct” election is therefore also only a direct election, so to speak.

Passage II. Indirect election.

§ 48. “The major of the battalion is elected by the captains,
platoon leaders and file leaders
of the respective companies by absolute
majority of votes.”

Passage III. Combination of indirect election with royal appointment.

§ 49. “The
colonel
is
appointed
by the
King
from a list
of three candidates who are elected by the leaders of the respective battalions
down to and including the platoon leaders.”

Passage IV. Combination of indirect election with appointment by the gentlemen
commanders.

§ 50. “The adjutants are appointed by the respective commanders from the
number of platoon leaders, the battalion clerk from the number of file leaders, the
battalion drummer from the number of drummers.”

Passage V.

Direct appointment by bureaucratic means.

§ 50. “The company sergeant and the company clerk are appointed by the
captain, the squadron sergeant and the squadron clerk by the
cavalry captain, the
file leader by the platoon leader.”

Thus if these electoral methods begin with a falsified direct election, they
end with the unalloyed cessation of
all
election, with the
arbitrary discretion of the gentlemen captains, cavalry captains and platoon leaders. Finis coronat opus.
<The end crowns the work.> This labyrinth does not lack the
pointe
, the point.

The crystals precipitating from this intricate chemical process, from the
resplendent colonel down to the humble lance-corporal, solidify for
six
years.

§ 51. “The elections and appointments of the leaders take place for

six
years.”

One cannot understand why, after such precautionary measures, the Ministry of Action in
the “General Provisions” still needed the tactlessness to shout in the face of the civil guard:
You are to be reorganised from a
political
into a purely
police
institution
and into a nursery of
old Prussian drill
. Why
rob the illusion!

The
royal
appointment is so much a
canonisation
that in the
section
“Civil Guard Courts”
no court is to be found for the
“colonel”
, but ex-

pressly only courts up to the

majors
. How could a royal colonel commit a
crime?

The mere existence as a militiaman, on the other hand, is so much a
profanation
of the
citizen that a word from his superior suffices, a word from the
royal infallible colonel down to the first best fellow whom
the captain has appointed as company sergeant or the platoon leader as file leader, to
deprive the militiaman of his
personal freedom
for 24 hours and have him locked up.

§ 81. “Every superior may reprimand his
subordinate
during service;
he may even order his
immediate arrest and confinement for 24 hours
if the subordinate renders himself guilty of drunkenness or some
other

gross
breach of duty
during service.”

The superior naturally decides
what
a
some other
gross
breach of duty is, and the
subordinate
has to obey orders.

Thus if the citizen, right at the beginning of this draft, matures towards the “essence
of his destiny”, the “protection of constitutional freedom”, by
ceasing to be what, according to Aristotle, the destiny of man is – a “zoon
politikon”, a “political animal” –, he first completes his vocation through the surrender
of his civil liberty to the arbitrary discretion of a colonel or a
file leader.

The
“Ministry of Action”
seems to pay homage to peculiarly oriental-mystical
notions, a kind of
cult of Moloch
. In order to protect the
“constitutional freedom” of the government presidents, mayors,
police directors and presidents, police commissioners, officials of the public prosecutor’s office,
court presidents or directors, examining magistrates, justices of the peace, village magistrates,
ministers, clergymen, military persons in active service, border, customs,
tax, forest protection and postal officials, the directors and warders of all
prisons, the executive security officials and persons under 25 or over
50 years of age – all persons who, according to §§ 9, 10, 11, do not belong
to the civil guard –, in order to protect the “constitutional freedom” of this
elite of the nation, the remaining rest of the nation must let its constitutional
freedoms, down to personal freedom, bleed to death a bloody sacrificial death on
the altar of the Fatherland. Pends toi, Figaro! Tu n’aurais pas inventé cela!
[Hang yourself, Figaro! You would not have invented that!
from: The Marriage of Figaro]

It goes without saying that the section on the
punishments
is
worked out with voluptuous thoroughness. The whole institution is, after all, according to “the essence
of its destiny”, only meant to be a punishment for the constitutional

and popular militia aspirations of an honourable
citizenry. We merely note further that, apart from the
legally

specified penal cases, the Magna Charta of the
civil guard drawn up by the
royal colonel
with the assistance of the
major and the approval of the apocryphal “district representation”, the
service regulations
, also gives
rise to a new sample card of punishments (see
§ 82 et seq.). It is self-evident that

fines can replace
prison sentences, so that the difference
between the
solvent
and the
insolvent
civil guard,
the difference discovered by the “Ministry of Action” between the
bourgeoisie
and the

proletariat
of the civil guard may enjoy a highly painful sanction.

The
exempted jurisdiction
, which the Ministry of Action is forced to give up on the
whole in the constitution, it smuggles back into the civil guard.
All disciplinary offences of the civil guardsmen and file leaders fall within the
competence of the company courts, composed of two platoon leaders, two file leaders and
three civil guardsmen. (§ 87.) All disciplinary offences of the “leaders of the
companies belonging to the battalion, from the platoon leader upwards
up to and including the major” fall within the competence of the battalion courts, composed
of two captains, two platoon leaders and three file leaders. (§ 88.) For
the major there again exists a special exempted jurisdiction, for,
as the same § 88 stipulates, “if the investigation concerns a major, two
majors shall join the battalion court as judicial members”. The colonel finally, as already stated, is
exempted
from any jurisdiction.

The excellent draft law ends with the following paragraph:

(§ 123.) "The provisions concerning the co-operation of the civic guard in the defence of the fatherland in time of war, as well as concerning its arming, equipping and provisioning in that event, are reserved for the law on the military constitution."

In other words: The Landwehr continues to exist alongside the reorganised civic guard.

Does not the Ministry of Action deserve to be impeached, if only on account of this draft law and its armistice project with Denmark?