"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – Lassalle

The Speech from the Throne
Contents
Ruge

Page numbers refer to: Karl Marx – Friedrich Engels – Werke, Vol. 6, pp. 320-322

Lassalle

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 237, 4 March 1849]

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Cologne, March 3. People still recall that famous procedure: An unfortunate girl was placed before the Assizes on a charge of infanticide. The juries acquitted her. Later she was summoned before the police court for concealed pregnancy. Amidst general public laughter, the committal order of the Council Chamber was quashed.

The Düsseldorf Council Chamber follows in the footsteps of its renowned predecessor.

By order of the Düsseldorf Council Chamber of 22 February, Lassalle, Cantador and Weyers have been committed to the Assizes on account of inflammatory speeches. We have nothing against that. But by order of the same Council Chamber Lassalle has also, secondly, been committed to the police court, because he is alleged to have called, in a speech in Neuss, for “forcible resistance against officials” (offences against Articles 209 and 217).

Let us first state the fact.

Among the circumstances motivating Lassalle’s committal to the Assizes is the same speech in Neuss. The Council Chamber states that, in this speech, he called for “arming against the sovereign authority”. (Offences against Articles 87, 91, 102.)

Thus, on the basis of the same speech, Lassalle is committed once to the Assizes and the other time to the police court. If the jury acquits him, the police court convicts him. If the police court does not convict him, he in any case remains in provisional detention until the police court has acquitted him. The verdict of the jury may turn out however it will – he remains deprived of his freedom, and the Prussian state is saved.

It is, we repeat, one and the same speech on the basis of which Lassalle

is committed by the Düsseldorf Council Chamber once to the Assizes, the other time to the police court. It is the same fact.

Setting that aside.

If, in a speech, I call for “arming against the sovereign authority”, is it not self-evident that I am calling for “forcible resistance against officials”? The existence of the sovereign authority is precisely its officials, army, administration, judges. Apart from this body, it is a shadow, a figment of the imagination, a name. The overthrow of the government is impossible without forcible opposition to its officials. If, in a speech, I call for revolution, it is superfluous to add: “Resist the officials by force.”

Following the example of the Düsseldorf Council Chamber, one could therefore commit every person, without exception, who is sent to the Assizes on the basis of Articles 87 and 102 for incitement to overthrow the government, subsequently to the police court on the basis of Articles 209 and 217.

And is there not somewhere in the Code d’instruction criminelle an article which reads as follows:

“Toute personne acquittée légalement ne pourra plus être reprise ni accusée à raison du même délit”? In German: “No one who has been legally acquitted may ever again be proceeded against or charged in respect of the same offence.”

But it makes no difference to the situation whether one summons me before the police court for the same offence after the jury has returned a verdict of acquittal, or whether one quashes the verdict of the jury from the outset by committing me 1. to the Assizes, and 2. to the police court for the same offence beforehand.

We ask the Düsseldorf Council Chamber whether their patriotic zeal has not outwitted their legal acumen. We ask the examining magistrate Ebermeier whether he is entirely free of personal hostility towards Lassalle. Finally, we ask an official of the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office whether he has not said: “We don’t care much about the acquittal of Cantador and Weyers, but we must keep Lassalle in any case.”

We doubt whether Lassalle has the same inclination to be listed for an endless period in the inventory of the “state citizens” par excellence <in the truest sense of the word>.

The pending case is important for us not only because it concerns the liberty and the right of a fellow citizen, one of our party friends. It

is important above all because it is a question of whether the exclusive competence of the jury court for political crimes is to share the fate of all so-called March gains or not, whether it is left to the discretion of the salaried robes to degrade the unpaid jury court into a mere sham court, by subjecting the same act – in the event that it is not recognised by the juries as a political crime or offence – at the same time, as a common offence, to the judgement of the police court. Why have crimes and offences been withdrawn from the ordinary courts and assigned to jury courts at all? Obviously it was assumed, despite the honour and delicacy of the salaried judges, that in political trials they represent everything except the interest of the accused.

We shall return to this subject. <See “N.Rh.Ztg.” No. 283, “Lassalle”, “N.Rh.Ztg.” No. 287, “Lassalle” and “N.Rh.Ztg.” No. 288, “Lassalle”>