Valdenaire’s Arrest – Sebaldt

*Trier. The Berlin Conciliation Assembly, as is well known, has postponed Wencelius’ motion concerning the arrest of Victor Valdenaire, deputy of the rural district of Trier. And on what grounds! Because no law on the inviolability of the people’s representatives is to be found in the archives of the old Prussian legislation – naturally, just as little as people’s representatives in the old lumber-room of Prussian history. Nothing easier than, on this basis, subsequently to annihilate all the gains of the revolution in the interest of the state treasury! The self-evident claims, needs and rights of the revolution are naturally not sanctioned by a legislation whose foundation has been blown sky-high by this very revolution. From the moment Prussian people’s representatives existed, the inviolability of Prussian people’s representatives exists. Or is the continued existence of the entire Conciliation Assembly to be left to the whim of a police commissioner or a court of law? To be sure! Zweiffel, Reichensperger and the other Rhenish jurists, who transform every political question into a procedural dispute, and could not let the Valdenaire case pass without exhibiting a tiny piece of quibbling and an immense servility, are completely secure against such an eventuality.

On this occasion, a question to Herr Reichensperger II. Is Herr Reichensperger perchance destined to assume the presidency of the Chamber in Cologne after the retirement of Herr Schauberg, which is to take place on July 1, 1848?

Valdenaire was arrested just as he was boarding the mail coach to Merzig, where the election of the deputy to Frankfurt was to take place. Valdenaire had secured a large majority of the votes. No more convenient means of thwarting an unwelcome election than to arrest the candidate! And the government, to be consistent, does not summon his deputy Gräff, despite his protest, and thus leaves an unwelcome population of 60,000 souls unrepresented. We advise Herr Gräff to betake himself to Berlin on his own authority.

Finally, we cannot better characterise the state of affairs in Trier than by the following reprint of a warning from the high and mighty Herr Sebaldt, Royal District Councillor and Lord Mayor of Trier.

Warning.
On several consecutive evenings, unusually numerous gatherings of people have appeared in public squares and streets of the town, which have given some timorous persons the belief in impending disorderly demonstrations.
I am not numbered among the timorous, and can well allow it when the traffic in the streets moves about freely. Should it, however, unexpectedly occur to a few immature hot-heads to misuse this traffic for pranks or insulting teasing, I would urgently request the better part of the public to separate themselves immediately from those elements, for serious disturbances of order will be met with seriousness, and I should be sorry if, in the event of a conflict, the unwary instead of the guilty should come to harm.
Trier, 16 June 1848.
The Royal District Councillor and Lord Mayor,
Government Councillor Sebaldt.

How genially the high gentleman writes, how patriarchally!
“He can well allow it when the traffic in the streets moves about freely.” Pleasant passion of Herr Sebaldt!
Timorous persons fear a demonstration. The dictator of Trier possesses the quality of not being timorous. But he must show his plenitude of power, he must transform the chimeras of the timorous into an official conjecture, in order to be able to threaten serious disturbances with counter-seriousness.
How surprisingly the great man combines seriousness and geniality! Under the protection of this serious-genial Providence, the better sort in Trier can slumber in peace.