Berlin, October 16, 1858

If the world in general knows nothing or little of the Prussian constitution, the significant fact that the Prussian people themselves grope in the same dismal ignorance will in any case afford it every desirable consolation. Right now electoral committees in Berlin, Breslau, Königsberg, Cologne, and all the other great or small centres of Liberalism are busily engaged in looking up the yellowed pages of the Prussian Charter in order to make sure which legitimate weapons of attack or defence, suitable for the present purpose, could be drawn from that mysterious arsenal. During the past ten years, in which this Charter was held up as a matter of real value, as a final result, as a definitive settlement, most Prussians gave it the cold shoulder and troubled themselves as little about it as about the laws of Manu. The moment the feeling became general that circumstances had transformed this official rubbish into a double-edged sword, everybody is evidently at pains to familiarise himself with “the great unknown”. On the other hand, in official circles the most uncomfortable feeling is gaining ground that the fruit of knowledge might in this case, as in the antediluvian epoch, prove to be the fruit of sin; and the constitution-fever that has seized the Prussian people all of a sudden is regarded with gloomy and, I can only say, well-founded suspicion. Just at this moment the Prince of Prussia is contemplating a *coup d’état* as a possibility to which he might see himself driven in the not too distant future. Should the plan of the electoral committees succeed in recruiting the majority of the elective Chamber from the ranks of the Liberals of the National Assembly of 1848, from the Waldeck, Jacoby, Rodbertus, Unruh, Kirchmann, etc., then the Prince would once more have to fight on the very same battlefield which the monarchy appeared to have conquered in December 1848. The mere breath, the murmur, and the din of reawakened popular life confuse him. Should he – as a section of his own camarilla advises him – form a Bismarck-Schönhausen cabinet and thereby fling the gauntlet of revolution bluntly in its face and without much ado stifle in the bud the hopes that are openly linked to his accession to the regency, then the elective Chamber could, in accordance with Article 56 of the constitution and with his own ordinances, raise for discussion the “necessity” of his regency. His regime would thus begin with agitating and threatening debates on the legitimate or usurpatory character of his title. If, on the other hand, he allowed the movement, even for a short time, to unfold itself and to take on tangible forms undisturbed, the old royalist party would multiply his difficulties by turning against him and attacking him for having reopened the floodgates of the revolution which, in their opinion, they had managed to close with statesmanlike superiority so long as they were permitted to hold the helm under the banner of the old insane king. The history of monarchies shows that in epochs of social revolution there is nothing more dangerous for a resolute and straightforward but ordinary and old-fashioned man than to inherit a character of fickleness, weakness, and faithlessness. James I, whom Frederick William most closely resembles, withstood the storm that brought Charles I to the scaffold, and James II expiated in lonely exile that delusion of divine right which had even enhanced the extraordinary popularity of Charles II. Perhaps it was an instinctive fear of the difficulties awaiting him that moved Prince William to put up stubborn resistance to the proclamation of the Charter, a charter that was proclaimed by the same king, Frederick William IV, who, at the opening of the United Diet of the Provincial Estates in 1847, declared bombastically:

“I feel impelled to make the solemn declaration: that no power on earth shall ever succeed in moving Me to transform the natural relationship, which with us is so powerful precisely through its inner truth, between prince and people into a conventional, constitutional one, and that I now and nevermore shall allow a written sheet to force its way between our Lord God in heaven and this land as a sort of second Providence, to rule us with its paragraphs and through them to replace the old, sacred loyalty.”

In an earlier correspondence I have already reported how it came about that the sketch of a constitution drafted by the Camphausen ministry and elaborated by the revolutionary assembly of 1848 forms the basis of the present constitution, after, namely, a coup d’état swept away the original draft and an imposed charter reproduced it in a mutilated form, after two chambers convened to revise it reworked the imposed charter, and countless royal ordinances corrected the revised charter; this whole laborious procedure was employed in order to obliterate even the last features that might bear witness to the revolutionary origin of the patchwork. Yet this aim was not fully attained, since all ready-made charters must be cut more or less after the French pattern, and, do what one will, any claim to striking originality must be renounced. If one therefore looks through Title II of the constitution of January 1850, which deals with the “Rights of the Prussians”, the Prussian *droits de l’homme* (human rights), as it were, the paragraphs read quite well at first sight.

“All Prussians are equal before the law. Personal liberty is guaranteed. The dwelling is inviolable. No one may be deprived of his legal judge. Penalties may only be threatened or inflicted in accordance with the law. Property is inviolable. Civil death and the penalty of confiscation of property do not take place. Freedom of emigration may be restricted by the state only in respect of military obligation. Freedom of religious confession, of association into religious societies, and of joint domestic and public religious worship is guaranteed. The enjoyment of civil and political rights is independent of religious confession. The introduction of civil marriage shall take place in accordance with a special law. Science and its teaching are free. Sufficient provision shall be made for the education of youth through public schools. Every one is free to give instruction and to establish and direct educational institutions. The means for the establishment, maintenance, and extension of the public elementary school are raised by the communes . . . In the public elementary school instruction is given free of charge. Every Prussian has the right to express his opinion freely by word, writing, print . . . Offences committed by word, writing, print . . . are to be punished according to the general penal laws. All Prussians are entitled to assemble . . . without arms in closed rooms. All Prussians have the right to unite into societies for such purposes as do not contravene the penal laws. The right of petition belongs to all Prussians. The secrecy of letters is inviolable. All Prussians are liable to military service. The armed force may be used . . . only in the cases specified by law . . . The creation of fiefs . . . is prohibited. The existing feudal property shall be transformed into free property. The free divisibility of landed property is guaranteed.”

If one now turns from the “Rights of the Prussians” as they stand on paper to the sorry shape they present in reality, one will, if one has not already done so, become fully aware of the extraordinary contrast between idea and reality, between theory and practice. At every step you take, even in a mere change of locality, the all-powerful bureaucracy steps into action, this second Providence of genuine Prussian origin. You can neither live nor die, neither marry, write letters, think, print, engage in business, teach or learn, convene a meeting, build a factory, emigrate, nor do anything whatsoever without “obrigkeitliche Erlaubnis” [“official permission” — the *N.-Y. D. T*. has this in German]. As for the freedom of science or religion, the abolition of patrimonial jurisdiction, the abolition of estate privileges, or the removal of entails and primogeniture — all that is sheer nonsense. Prussia was freer in all these matters in 1847 than it is today. Whence this contradiction? All the liberties granted by the Prussian Charter have a great big cloven hoof. They are granted “within the limits of the law”. But the existing law is precisely the same absolutist law that descends from Frederick II and not from the birthday of the constitution. Hence there exists a deadly antagonism between the law of the constitution and the constitution of the law, for the latter in reality turns the former into empty semblance. On the other hand, the Charter refers in the most decisive points to organic laws intended to elucidate its vague outlines. Now these organic laws were elaborated under heavy pressure from the reaction. They have abolished guarantees that existed even during the worst times of the absolute monarchy, such as, for example, the independence of the judges from the executive power. Not content with these combined means of decomposition, the old and the new-fangled laws, the Charter grants the king the right to suspend it in every political respect whenever he sees fit.

Nevertheless, despite all this, there are two Prussias, the Prussia of the Charter and the Prussia of the House of Hohenzollern. To find a way out of this antagonism is what the electoral committees are now striving to do, notwithstanding the difficulties which the electoral laws place in their path.