There is now on the tapis a querelle allemande,’ which, diminutive 
as it must appear to the general public, may, nevertheless, result in 
a German, and even a European, catastrophe. The little country 
which affords the pretext of quarrel to the ruling Teutonic Powers 
has acquired a bad renown in the history of the United States. It is 
generally known that of the thousands of drilled slaves whom 
England bought in Germany, to ship over the Atlantic and let 
loose on her revolted Colonies, the principal stock was supplied 
from Hesse-Cassel, where a paternal Arch-elector used to derive 
revenue from the exchange of British gold for his faithful 
yeomen. Ever since that memorable epoch, the relations between 
the Arch-electors and their subjects seem to have grown progres- 
sively inimical, until, in 1830, the French Revolution of July gave 
the signal to a revolution in Hesse-Cassel.*? That revolution was 
secretly fostered by the present Arch-elector,” who felt rather 
anxious to share with his beloved father‘ the responsibilities of 
supreme power. The little revolution paved the way to the Hessian 
Constitution of Jan. 5, 1831,° which affords now the grand 
battle-cry between Austria and Prussia; had, in 1850, driven them 
to the bloodless battle of Bronzell; and, circumstances helping, 
may soon induce Louis Bonaparte to study the “German question” 
after he has contrived to make a bore of the “Italian question.’ * 

universel, No. 64, March 5, 1859.— Ed. 

To explain the present conflict, a short sketch of the Hessian 
Constitution of 1831, of the metamorphoses it underwent, and the 
events which mixed up with its fate the rival claims of Austria and 
Prussia, may prove opportune. 

With the exception of the method of election it ordains, that is, 
the election of representatives by the old estates (nobles, citizens, 
peasants), the Hessian Constitution of 1831 may be regarded as 
the most liberal fundamental law ever proclaimed in Europe. 
There is no other Constitution which restrains the powers of the 
executive within limits so narrow, makes the Administration more 
dependent on the Legislature, and confides such a supreme 
control to the judicial benches. To account for this strange fact, it 
may be said that the Hessian revolution of 1831 was, in point of 
fact, a revolution against the Prince on the part of the lawyers, the 
civil service and the military officers acting in harmony with the 
malcontents of all “estates.” By the first paragraph, every Hessian 
prince is excluded from the succession to the throne, who should 
decline taking an oath to the Constitution. The law on Ministerial 
responsibility, so far from being an unmeaning phrase, enables the 
representatives to remove, through the State tribunal, every 
Minister declared guilty of having even misinterpreted any 
resolution of the Legislature. The Prince is divested of the right of 
grace. He enjoys neither the privilege of pensioning or removing 
the members of the Administration against their will, there being 
always open to them an appeal to the courts of law. The latter are 
invested with the right of final decision in all questions of 
bureaucratic discipline. The Representative Chamber selects out of 
its members a permanent committee, forming a sort of Areopagus, 
watching and controlling the Government, and impeaching the 
officials for violation of the Constitution, no exception being 
granted on behalf of orders received by subalterns from their 
superiors in rank. In this way, the members of the bureaucracy 
were emancipated from the Crown. On the other hand, the Courts 
of law, empowered to decide definitively upon all the acts of the 
Executive, were rendered omnipotent. Communal Councillors, 
nominated by popular election, had to administer not only the 
local, but also the general police. The military officers, before 
entering the service, are bound by oath to obedience to the 
Constitution, and, in all respects, enjoy the same privileges against 
the Crown as the civilians. The representation, consisting of one 
single Chamber, possesses the right of stopping all taxes, imposts 
and duties, on every conflict with the executive. 

Such is the Constitution of 1831 for Hesse-Cassel, which the 

Arch-elector, William II, the father of the now reigning Prince, 
proclaimed, 

“in perfect agreement with his estates,” and which “he hoped would still, in 
distant centuries, flourish as a solid monument of the harmony between the 
sovereign and his subjects.” * 

A draft of the Constitution was then, on the part of the 
Government, communicated to the German Diet, which, if it gave 
no guaranty, seemed to accept it as a fait accompli. It could be 
foreseen that despite all pia desideria,’ the Constitutional machinery 
was not to run smoothly in Hesse-Cassel. From 1832 to 1848 there 
sat not less than ten legislatures, of which not two contrived to last 
their natural terms of life. The revolution of 1848 and 1849 
impregnated the Constitution of 1831 with a more democratic 
spirit by abolishing the election by estates, by putting the 
nomination of the members of the Supreme Court into the hands 
of the Legislature, and, lastly, by taking out of the hands of the 
Prince the supreme control of the army, and making it over to the 
Minister of War, a personage responsible to the representatives of 
the people. 

In 1849—on the meeting of the first Hessian Legislature, 
elected according to the new electoral law—a general reaction had 
already broken in upon Germany; but, nevertheless, things were 
still in a state of fermentation. The old German Diet had been 
washed away by the revolutionary waves, while the German 
National Assembly, and its mock Executive, had been laid low at 
the point of the bayonet. So there no longer existed a center of 
the whole German Federation. Ufder these circumstances, Austria 
demanded the restoration of the old Diet at Frankfort, where its 
influence had always been paramount, while Prussia wanted to 
form a Northern Union,*! for her own use and under her own 
control. Austria, backed by the four German Kingdoms and 
Baden, contrived, in fact, to gather around her in Frankfort-on- 
the-Main the relics of the old German Diet, while Prussia made a 
weak attempt at holding a Union-Diet at Erfurt,*’' with some of 
the smaller States. Hesse-Cassel, under the direction of its liberal 
Legislature, was, of course, foremost among the opponents of 
Austria, and the partisans of Prussia. As soon, however, as the 
Arch-elector had ascertained that Austria was backed by Russia, 
and was likely to win the race, he threw off the mask, declared for 
the Austrian Diet against the Prussian Union, installed a reaction- 

ary Ministry with the ill-famed Hassenpflug at its head, dissolved 
the opposing Legislature, which had refused to grant taxes, and, 
having vainly tried to raise the taxes on his own authority, finding 
no support in the ranks of the army, the bureaucracy and the law 
courts, declared Hesse-Cassel in a state of siege. He had taken the 
good precaution of running away and resorting to Frankfort-on- 
the-Main, there to live under the immediate protection of Austria. 
Austria, in the name of the old Diet, restored by herself, 
dispatched a federal corps on the errand of putting down the 
Hessian Constitution, and raising up the throne of the Arch- 
elector. Prussia, on her part, was forced to declare for the Hessian 
Constitution against the Arch-elector, in order to maintain her 
own protest against the revival of the German Diet, and her 
attempt of establishing a Northern Union under her own auspices. 
Thus the Hessian Constitution was converted into a battle-cry 
between Austria and Prussia. Things drew meanwhile to a crisis. 
The vanguards of the Federal and the Prussian armies confronted 
each other at Bronzell, but only to sound the retreat on both sides. 
The President of the Prussian Ministry, Herr von Manteuffel, met 
the Prince of Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Minister, at OlmUtz, on 
the 29th of November, 1850, to resign into his hands all Prussian 
claims to a policy of her own with regard to the Diet, Hesse-Cassel 
and Schleswig-Holstein. Prussia returned to the Diet a downcast 
and penitent sinner. Her humiliation was embittered by the 
triumphant march of an Austrian army to the coasts of the 
Northern Sea. The Hessian Constitution of 1831 was of course 
abolished without further ado, to be replaced at first by martial 
law, and subsequently, in 1852, by a most reactionary Constitution, 
hatched out by Hassenpflug, doctored by the Elector, and 
emendated and sanctioned by the German Diet.* This Constitution 
of 1852 formed, then, the standing topic of quarrel between the 
country and the Elector—all attempts at conciliation proving 
futile. The late events in Italy, and the consequent movements in 
Germany, were considered by the Prussian Government to afford 
the best opportunity of revenge for the defeat of Olmutz, and the 
renewal of its old feud with Austria. Prussia knows that Russia, 
who, in 1850, turned the balance on the side of Austria, will this 
time move in the opposite direction. Till now nothing has been 
exchanged between the two rivals except paper bullets. That the 
Hessian Constitutions of 1831 and 1852 form only the pretext of 
their fight, is shown by the simple circumstance that Austria 

declares for a modification of the Constitution of 1852, in 
accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of 1831, while 
Prussia insists on the restoration of the Constitution of 1831, after 
its having been remodeled in conformity to the general (monar- 
chic) principles of the German Diet. The people and the 
Chambers in Hesse-Cassel, relying on Prussian support, ask for 
the restoration of the old Constitution. The whole business, 
properly managed by interested counselors from without, may end 
in a German civil war, if the German people turn not, at the 
opportune moment, against “both their houses.’’* 

Written on November 15, 1859 

Tribune, No. 5807, December 2, 1859