Reaction carries out the programme of the revolution. On this 
apparent contradiction rests the strength of Napoleonism, which 
still today considers itself the mandatory of the Revolution of 
1789; the success of the Schwarzenberg policy in Austria, which 
brought the vague 1848 dream of unity into a clear, positive focus; 
and the phantom of parliamentary reform of the Confederation, 
which is now current in Little Germany owing to Prussian initiative 
and performs a burlesque dance of ghosts with Citizens Jacobus 
Venedey and Zais on the graves of the 1848 revolution. In the 
hands of reaction, to be sure, this programme of the revolution 
turns into a satire on the relevant revolutionary efforts, and thus 
becomes a lethal weapon in the hands of an implacable enemy. 
Reaction fulfils the demands of the revolution just as Louis 
Bonaparte fulfils those of the Italian national party. What is 
tragicomical in this process is that the poor sinners that are to be 
hanged there on their own phrases and stupidities cry “Bravo!” at 
the top of their voice as the executor puts the noose round their 
necks, and wildly applaud their own execution. 

Just as in 1848 the well-known March demands, which had been 
drawn up by the party then called “revolutionary” and had been 
spread far and wide by very skilful organisation,’'? made the 
rounds from Diet to Diet and from riot to riot, so today a 
“Declaration” is making a triumphal tour of Central and South 
Germany, apparently the regency’s mot d’ordre* for the “popular 
movement” wanted for the purpose of armed mediation. This 
regency programme which bears the very characteristic name of 

the “Nassau Declaration’, since it was first adopted by the 
sponging* fathers of the fatherland under the leadership of our 
old friend Herr Zais, proclaims: 

“Austria should not be left alone in the present war, which may eventually 
threaten German interests. On the contrary, it is the duty of Germany” (its calling, 
Herr von Schleinitz would say) “to insist on reforms by Austria, including 
assurance of a state of affairs in Italy that meets the just demands of our time. The 
military and political leadership in the impending struggle must be turned over to 
Prussia. That leadership, however, would not yet (!) satisfy the lasting need of a 
strong federal government; a reorganisation of the central power in Germany on the 
one hand, and the creation of a constitution on the other, with German popular 
representation as its conclusion” (point, as Herr von Gagern used to put it), “cannot 
be withheld from the German people.” 

This Nassau Declaration, also given the name of “Manifesto”, 
has already been adopted by the constitutional and democratic 
notables of Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Wurttemberg—here signed by 
Reyscher, Schott, Vischer, Duvernoy, Ziegler, etc., in harmonious 
confusion—and is preached by the “liberal” press of Southwest 
Germany, Franconia and Thuringia, as the wonder-working gospel 
that will save Germany, extirpate the French Empire root and 
branch, give Herr Venedey his daily allowances back and provide 
Citizen Zais with political significance. 

So that is the gist of the matter‘; by using this kind of shabby 
trick, speculating on the utter mental retardation and senile 
childishness of the philistines of the Empire, the advocates of 
Prussia’s calling hope to conjure away from the Federal Diet the 
laurels of Bronzell, so chivalrously won and so dearly paid for! 
We must admit that we have very little respect for advocates of 
Prussia’s calling who, instead of openly slapping the gentlemen of 
the Eschenheimer Gasse,*'* as one would like to do and dare not, 
insult them by throwing Messrs. Schott, Zais and Reyscher in their 
faces from a safe distance. If the statecraft of Berlin knows no 
other way of “saving Germany” than buying second-hand‘ the 
effects of the lamented Herr von Radowitz and his unlamented 
men of Gotha, then it can after all make peace at any price and 
submit unresistingly to the Franco-Russian dictatorship, since it 

has not the slightest conception of the seriousness of the struggle 
that has been initiated by the Italian freedom campaign. 

The fact that there are still patriotic notables who find an 
adequate expression of their insignificance in a “Nassau declara- 
tion” and live in the comforting conviction that by means of a 
feeble echo of the 1848 Imperial Parliament they can call into 
being a popular movement strong enough to take up the struggle 
against the combined despotisms of Russia and France, only 
proves how right H. Heine is when he says: 

“True madness is as rare as true wisdom.” ” 

For the madness of the Nassau declarers is false through and 
through, lying and cowardly, a Harlequin mask that these 
gentlemen put on to give the appearance of being lunatics not 
responsible for their actions, because in fact they are ashamed of 
their pitiable helplessness and inaction, and hope to evade 
responsibility by appealing for public sympathy as imbeciles. 

“Reorganised central power” with “popular representation” —a 
splendid weapon against raving Bonapartism and a Tsarism that 
has been driven to desperation and has to fight on German soil 
for an existence threatened in its own interior! I should have 
thought we had had enough of both in 1848 and 1849 to have 
realised that any popular movement is dead when it loses its 
revolutionary power to a constituent popular representative 
assembly.