The Agreement Debate of July 4, 1848

Cologne, July 8. Simultaneously with the news of the dissolution of the
No. 39, July 9, 1848
Hansemann ministry, we also receive the stenographic report
of the sitting of the Agreement Assembly of July 4. In this sitting
the first symptom of this dissolution, the resignation of Herr Rodbertus,
was announced, and at the same time the break-up of the ministry was
considerably advanced by the two contradictory votes on the Posen Commission
and the resignation of the Left.
The ministers’ announcements regarding Rodbertus’s resignation contain
nothing new even in the stenographic report. We pass over them.
Herr Forstmann rose; he must protest against the expressions which
Herr Gladbach had used on June 30 concerning the “deputation of the
most respectable men of the Rhineland and Westphalia”.
Herr Berg: The other day I already made the remark on a point of
order that the reading of the letter was not relevant here and
that it bored me. (A voice: Us it bores!) Well, us. I spoke for myself
and several others, and the fact that today we are being bored by a
subsequent remark does not cancel this remark.
Herr Tüshaus, rapporteur of the Central Section on the question of the
Posen commission, reports. The Central Section moves
that a commission be appointed to investigate all questions relating to the
Posen affair and leaves open the question which
means the commission should have at its disposal for this purpose.
Herren Wolff, Müller, Reichensperger II and Sommer have
moved amendments, all of which are seconded and will come up for discussion.
Herr Tüshaus adds a few further remarks to his report, in
which he speaks out against the commission. The truth, as always,
this time too obviously lay in the middle, and after long and
contradictory reports one would merely arrive at the conclusion that
wrong had been done on both sides. That would leave one exactly where
one is now. One should at least first have the government furnish a detailed
report and then decide the rest on that basis.
How does the Central Section come to elect a rapporteur
who takes the floor against his own report?
Herr Reuter develops the reasons that prompted him to put the motion for 10
the appointment of the commission. He remarks in conclusion that he
had by no means intended an indictment of the ministers; as a jurist he knew
only too well that all previous ministerial responsibility was illusory, so
long as no law on this point existed.
Herr Reichensperger II rises. He protests his enormous sym- 15
pathies for Poland, he hopes that the day is not far off when the
German nation will repay an old debt of honour to the grandchildren of Sobieski.
(As if this debt of honour had not long since been paid off, by eight partitions
of Poland, by shrapnel, hell-stone and cudgelling!) “But
we shall also have to maintain the calmest prudence, so that 20
German interests always remain in the front line.” (German
interests naturally consist in keeping as much of the territory
as possible.) And Herr Reichensperger is particularly opposed to a commission
to investigate the facts: “this is a question
which expressly belongs to history or to the courts.” Has 25
Herr Reichensperger forgotten that, in the Revolution debate, he himself
declared that the gentlemen were here to “make history”? He closes with
a juridical quibble about the position of the deputies. We
shall return to the question of competence later.
But now Herr Bauer of Krotoschin rises, himself a 30
German Pole, to defend the interests of his confraternity.
“I would gladly have begged the assembly to draw a veil over the past,
and to concern itself only with the future of a people
that rightly claims our sympathy.”
How touching! Herr Bauer of Krotoschin is so occupied with sympathy for 35
the future of the Polish people that, concerning
its past, concerning the barbarities of the Prussian soldiery, of the
Jews and the German Poles, he would like to “draw a veil”! In the interest
of the Poles themselves, the matter should be dropped!
“What is to be expected from such distressing discussions? If 40
you find the Germans guilty, will you for that reason take less care for the preservation
of your nationality, for the security of their persons and their property?”
In truth, a magnificent frankness! Herr Bauer of Krotoschin
admits that the Germans might possibly be in the wrong –
but even if so, German nationality must be supported at the expense of the
Poles all the same!
“I am unable to see what the stirring up of the rubble of the
past can bring to the light of day that is conducive to a satisfactory
solution of these difficult questions.”
Admittedly nothing “conducive” for the gentlemen German Poles and
their enraged allies. That is also why they resist it so vigorously.
Herr Bauer then seeks to intimidate the assembly: through such
a commission the firebrand would once again be cast into men’s hearts,
fanaticism once again aroused, and a bloody clash could once again
arise. These philanthropic considerations prevent Herr Bauer from voting
for the commission. But lest it appear that his constituents had reason to fear
the commission, he cannot vote against it either. Out of consideration for the
Poles he is against it, out of consideration for the Germans he is for the commission,
and in order to preserve his entire impartiality in this dilemma,
he does not vote at all.
Another deputy from Posen, Bussmann of Gnesen, regards his mere
presence as proof that Germans also live in Posen. He
wishes to prove statistically that in his district “whole masses of Germans”
live. (Interruption.) The property, moreover, was more than two-thirds
in the hands of the Germans. “On the other hand I believe I can furnish the proof
that we Prussians conquered Poland not only in 1815 by our arms
(!?!), but have conquered it a second time through a 33-year peace, through our
intelligence (of which this sitting provides samples).” (Interruption. The President calls upon
Herr Bussmann to keep to the point.) I am not against reorganisation; the
most sensible reorganisation, however, would be a communal ordinance with election
of the officials; this and the Frankfurt resolutions on the protection of all
nationalities would offer the Poles every guarantee. I am, however, very much against
the line of demarcation. (Interruption. Another reprimand.)
If I am to keep to the point, then I am against the
commission, because it is useless and agitating; besides, I do not fear it,
but shall be for the commission when it comes to it
... (Interruption: So he is speaking in favour of it!) No, I am speaking against it ...
Gentlemen, in order at least to grasp the reasons why the insurrection
arose, I will, in a few words (Interruption.
Contradiction.)
Cieskorki: No interruptions! Let him finish!
The President: I call upon the speaker once again to keep strictly to the question.
Bussmann: “I have declared myself against the commission
and have nothing further to say!”
With these furious words the indignant German-Polish
estate owner leaves the tribune and hastens to his seat amid the
resounding laughter of the assembly.
Herr Heyne, deputy of the Bromberg district, seeks to save the honour
of his countrymen by voting for the commission. He cannot,
however, refrain from casting suspicion, deceit, etc., in the faces of the Poles.
Herr Baumstark, likewise a German Pole, is again against the com- 15
mission. The reasons are always the old ones.
The Poles abstain from the discussion. Only Pokrzywinicki speaks
for the commission. It is well known that it was precisely the Poles who
from the outset pressed for investigation, whereas it now emerges that the
German Poles, with one single exception, all protest against it.
Herr Pohle is so little a Pole that he counted the whole of Posen as part of Germany
and declared the frontier between Germany and Poland to be a “partition wall drawn
through Germany”!
The defenders of the commission generally spoke at length and
with little sharpness. As with their opponents, they too indulged in
repetitions upon repetitions. Their arguments were mostly of a
feuilletonesque, trivial nature and far less entertaining than the interested
protestations of the German Poles.
We shall return tomorrow to the position of the ministers and officials in this question,
as well as to the much-vaunted question of competence.

No. 41, July 11, 1848
Cologne, July 9. What an urgently necessary act of justice towards the Poles
the appointment of a commission of inquiry with unconditional full powers is,
emerges from the report that we began three days ago to give, based on
authentic documents.
The old-Prussian officials, from the outset in a position hostile to
the Poles, saw their existence threatened by the promises of reorganisation.
The smallest act of justice towards the Poles brought them danger. Hence the
fanatical fury with which, supported by the soldiery let loose, they fell upon
the Poles, broke conventions, ill-treated the most harmless people, allowed
or sanctioned the most enormous infamies, solely in order to force the Poles
into a struggle in which their crushing by the most colossal superior force was certain.
The Camphausen ministry, not only weak, perplexed, badly informed,
but even deliberately, on principle, inactive, let everything go as it went. The most
hideous barbarities occurred, and Herr Camphausen did not stir.
What reports now lie before us about the Posen civil war?
On the one hand, the biased, interested reports of the authors of the war,
the officials, the officers, and the data, based on both, which the
ministry can provide. The ministry itself is equally a party, so
long as Herr Hansemann sits in it. These documents are biased,
but they are official.
On the other hand, the facts collected by the Poles, their complaints
to the ministry, notably the letters of Archbishop Przyluski to the
ministers. These documents for the most part have no official character;
their authors, however, offer to prove the truth of their contents.
The two classes of reports totally contradict one another, and
the commission is to investigate which side is right.
It can do this – a few exceptional cases apart – only by
proceeding to the spot and, through the examination of witnesses,
at least clarifying the most important points. If this is forbidden, its
whole activity is illusory; it may then exercise a certain historico-philological
criticism, declare one or the other report more credible, but it cannot decide.
The whole significance of the commission thus depends on the power
to examine witnesses, and hence the zeal of all the Polonophages in
the assembly to eliminate it by means of all manner of deep and crafty reasons,
hence the coup d’état at the close of the sitting.
Deputy Bloem said in the debate of the 4th: “Does it mean searching for the truth
when one wishes, as certain amendments propose, to draw the truth from the
government submissions? By no means! Out of what have the government
submissions arisen? For the most part from the reports of the officials.
Out of what have the officials arisen? Out of the old system. Have these officials
vanished, has new Landräte been appointed by new, popular elections?
By no means. Are we informed by the officials of the true state of feeling? The old
officials still report today as they did before. It is therefore clear that the mere
inspection of the ministerial files will lead us to nothing.”
Deputy Richter goes even further. He sees in the conduct of the
Posen officials only the extreme but necessary consequence of the retention
of the old administrative system and of the old officials in general.
Similar conflicts between official duty and the interest of the
old officials may occur any day in other provinces as well.
“Since the revolution we have had a different ministry and have even
acquired a second one; but the ministry is after all only the soul, it has to
organise uniformly everywhere. In the provinces, by contrast, the old 10
organisation of the administration has everywhere remained the same. Do you want a different
image? One does not pour new wine into old, rotten skins.
In this way we have the most terrible complaints in the Grand Duchy.
Should we not, for this reason alone, set up a commission, so that one
may see how very necessary it is, in other provinces just as much as in 15
Posen, to replace the old organisation by a new one suited to the times and
circumstances?”
Deputy Richter is right. After a revolution, the renewal of all civil
and military officials, as well as of a part of the judicial ones, and especially
of the parquet, is the prime necessity. Otherwise 20
the best measures of the central authority are shipwrecked by the obstinacy
of the subordinates. The weakness of the French provisional government
and the weakness of the Camphausen ministry have borne bitter fruit in this
respect.
In Prussia, however, where for forty years a completely organised 25
bureaucratic hierarchy has ruled with absolute power in the administration
and the military, in Prussia, where it was precisely this bureaucracy
that was the main enemy defeated on March 19, here the
complete renewal of the civil and military officials was infinitely
more urgent. But the ministry of mediation naturally did not 30
have the calling to carry through revolutionary necessities. It
had, by its own admission, the calling to do nothing at all, and therefore left
its old opponents, the bureaucrats, the real power in their
hands for the time being. It “mediated” between the old bureaucracy and the new
conditions; in return, the bureaucracy “mediated” for it the Posen civil 35
war and the responsibility for cruelties of a kind that had not occurred since
the Thirty Years’ War.
The Hansemann ministry, heir of the Camphausen ministry,
had to take over all the assets and liabilities of its predecessor,
hence not only the majority in the Chamber, but also the Posen 40
events and the Posen officials. The ministry
was directly interested in making the investigation by the commission
as illusory as possible. The speakers of the ministerial majority,
and especially the jurists, applied their whole stock of casuistry
and craftiness so as to discover a profound, fundamental reason
why the commission might not examine witnesses. It
would lead too far if we were here to indulge in admiration of the
jurisprudence of a Reichensperger and the like. We must confine ourselves to bringing
the thorough exposition of Herr Minister Kühlwetter to the light of day.
Herr Kühlwetter, leaving the material question entirely aside, begins
with the declaration of how extremely agreeable it would be to the ministry
if such commissions were to assist it in fulfilling its difficult task
by providing clarifications, etc. Indeed, if Herr Reuter had not
had the happy idea of proposing such a commission,
Herr Kühlwetter would unconditionally have insisted upon it himself. One
should give the commission really far-reaching terms of reference (so that
it never gets done), he would agree that an anxious weighing-up was absolutely
not required. It might draw the whole past,
present and future of the province of Posen into the sphere of its activity;
so long as only clarifications were involved, the
ministry would not anxiously examine the competence of the commission.
Of course, one could go too far, yet he would leave it to the wisdom of the
commission whether it wished, e.g., to draw the question of the dismissal of the Posen
officials into its sphere as well.
So much for the introductory concessions of the Herr Minister, which,
larded with some plain-and-honest-man declamations, were greeted with several
lively bravos. Now come the “buts”.
“But when it has been remarked that the reports on Posen could not
possibly spread a correct light, because they come from officials alone, and, what
is more, from officials of the old days, I deem it my duty to take an
honourable estate under my protection. If it is true that individual officials
have not been true to their duty, let this be punished in the case of the
individual recreants, but the estate of officials may never
be denigrated because a few members of it have violated their duty.”
How boldly Herr Kühlwetter comes forward! Admittedly, individual
violations of duty have taken place, but on the whole the officials have
done their duty in an honourable manner.
And in fact, the mass of the Posen officials did their “duty”,
their “duty towards their oath of office”, towards the entire old-Prussian system
of bureaucracy, towards their own interest, which coincided with this duty.
They did their duty in that, for them, every means was good enough
to destroy the March 19 in Posen. And precisely for that reason, Herr Kühlwetter,
it is your “duty” to dismiss these officials en masse!
But Herr Kühlwetter speaks of the duty determined by pre-revolutionary
laws, in a case which concerns a completely different duty, one that sets in after every
revolution and which consists in correctly grasping the altered conditions and
promoting their development. And to demand of the officials that they exchange
the bureaucratic standpoint for the constitutional one, that they place themselves 10
on the ground of the revolution just as well as the new ministers –
that, according to Herr Kühlwetter, means denigrating an honourable estate!
Herr Kühlwetter likewise rejects the reproach that party chiefs have been favoured
and crimes have gone unpunished, in this generality. One should
indicate individual cases.
Does Herr Kühlwetter seriously assert that even a small
part of the brutalities and cruelties have been punished that the
Prussian soldiery committed, that the officials permitted and supported,
that the German Poles and Jews applauded? Herr
Kühlwetter says that he has not yet been able to examine the colossal material 20
from all sides. In fact, he seems at most to have examined it from
one side.
But now Herr Kühlwetter comes to the “most difficult and most delicate
question”, namely: in what forms the commission should conduct its proceedings.
Herr Kühlwetter would have wished this question to be discussed more thoroughly, 25
for “in this question, as has rightly been remarked, lies
a question of principle, the question of the droit d’enquête.”
Herr Kühlwetter now regales us with a lengthy development
on the division of powers in the state, which assuredly contained much that was
new for the Upper Silesian and Pomeranian peasants in the assembly. 30
It makes a curious impression, in the year of grace 1848,
to hear a Prussian minister, and moreover a “minister of action”,
expounding Montesquieu from the tribune with solemn earnestness.
The division of powers, which Herr Kühlwetter and other great 35
state philosophers regard with the deepest veneration as a sacred and inviolable
principle, is basically nothing other than the profane,
industrial division of labour, applied to the state mechanism
for simplification and control. Like all other sacred,
eternal and inviolable principles, it is only applied so far as it 40
just suits the existing conditions. Thus, in the constitutional monarchy,
e.g., the legislative and executive powers run into one another in the
person of the prince; furthermore, in the Chambers the legislative power
runs into one another with the control over the executive, etc. These
indispensable limitations of the division of labour in the state are now expressed
by state sages of the calibre of a “minister of action” as follows:
“The legislative power, so far as it is exercised by the representation of
the people, has its own organs; the executive power
has its own organs, and no less so the judicial power. It is
therefore (!) not permissible for one power directly to lay claim to the organs
of another power, unless this is transferred to it by a special
law.”
Deviation from the division of powers is not permissible, “unless
it is prescribed by a special law”! And conversely, the application of the
prescribed division of powers is likewise not permissible, “unless it is
“prescribed” by special laws”! What profundity! What revelations!
Of the case of a revolution, where the division of powers ceases without
“a special law”, Herr Kühlwetter says nothing at all.
Herr Kühlwetter now launches into a disquisition on how the
commission’s authorisation to examine witnesses upon oath, to requisition
officials, etc., in short, to see with its own eyes, would be an encroachment
on the division of powers and would have to be laid down by a special
law. The Belgian constitution is adduced as an example,
whose Article 40 expressly gives the Chambers the droit d’enquête.
But, Herr Kühlwetter, is there in Prussia legally and actually a division
of powers in the sense in which you understand the word, in the constitutional sense? Is
the existing division of powers not the restricted, truncated one, corresponding to the absolute,
bureaucratic monarchy? How, then, can one apply constitutional phrases to it before
it has been constitutionally reformed? How can the Prussians have an Art. 40
of the constitution, so long as this constitution itself does not yet exist at all?
Let us sum up. According to Herr Kühlwetter, the appointment of a commission
with unrestricted full powers is an encroachment on the constitutional
division of powers. The constitutional division of powers does not yet exist in Prussia at all;
therefore one cannot encroach upon it either.
But it is supposed to be introduced, and, during the revolutionary provisional regime
in which we live, it must, according to Herr Kühlwetter’s view, be presupposed
as already existing. If Herr Kühlwetter were right, then surely the constitutional
exceptions would also have to be presupposed as existing! And it is precisely
the right of inquiry of the legislative bodies that belongs to these constitutional
exceptions!
But Herr Kühlwetter is by no means right. On the contrary: the revolutionary
provisional regime consists precisely in the fact that the division of powers is provisionally
suspended, that the legislative authority momentarily seizes the executive power, or
the executive authority the legislative power. Whether the revolutionary dictatorship
(it is a dictatorship, however laxly it may be exercised) lies in the hands of the crown 10
or of an assembly or of both together, is quite immaterial. Does Herr Kühlwetter
want examples of all three cases? French history since 1789 provides them in abundance.
The provisional regime to which Herr Kühlwetter appeals proves precisely
the opposite. It gives the assembly quite other attributes than the
mere right of inquiry – it even gives it the right, if need be, 15
to transform itself into a court of justice and to condemn without laws!
Had Herr Kühlwetter foreseen these consequences, he would
perhaps have been somewhat more cautious in his acknowledegment of the revolution”.
But let him be reassured:
Germany, the pious nursery room,
Is no Roman den of murder,
and the gentlemen of the Agreement Assembly may sit as long as they like, they will
never become a “Long Parliament”.
If, by the way, we compare the official doctrinaire of the ministry of action
with his predecessor in doctrine, Herr Camphausen, we do find a considerable
difference. Herr Camphausen at any rate possessed infinitely more originality;
he rubbed shoulders with Guizot, but Herr Kühlwetter does not even come up to the
diminutive Lord John Russell.
We have sufficiently admired the state-philosophical richness of Kühlwetter’s
speech. Let us now consider the purpose, the real practical
reason for this moss-grown wisdom, this whole Montesquieuean division theory.
Herr Kühlwetter now proceeds to the consequences of his 35
theory. The ministry is, by way of exception, inclined to instruct the
authorities to carry out what the commission deems necessary.
It must, however, declare itself against direct instructions from the commission
to the authorities.
I.e., the commission, without direct connection with the authorities, 40
without power over them, cannot compel them to supply it with information
other than that which the authorities see fit to give. And in addition
the dragging course of business, the endless appeal through the channels! A nice means,
under the pretext of the division of powers, of making the commission
illusory!
“The intention cannot be to transfer to the commission the whole task
which the government has, as though anyone were thinking of
giving the commission the right to govern!”
“The government would have to continue, side by side with the commission,
to trace the causes on which the discord in Posen was based
(it is precisely the fact that it has been ‘tracing’ them so long and has still
found out nothing that is reason enough to leave it altogether out of the question now)
and because this end is pursued along two tracks, time and effort would often
be uselessly expended and collisions would hardly be avoidable.”
After the precedents to date, the commission would certainly
“uselessly expend” a great deal of “time and effort” if, upon Herr Kühlwetter’s proposal,
it entered into the protracted channels of appeal. Collisions are likewise much
easier on this path than if the commission deals directly with the authorities
and can immediately clear up misunderstandings and strike down bureaucratic
insolent cravings.
“It seems therefore (!) to lie in the nature of the matter that the commission
should seek to achieve the end in agreement with the ministry and under its constant
co-operation.”
Better and better! A commission that is supposed to control the ministry,
in agreement with it and under its constant co-operation! Herr
Kühlwetter does not scruple to let it be noticed that he considers it desirable
that the commission should be under his control, not he under
theirs.
“If, on the other hand, the commission were to adopt an isolated position,
the question would have to arise whether the commission will and can assume
the responsibility which devolves upon the ministry. With just as
much truth as wit the remark has already been made that
the inviolability of the deputies is incompatible with this responsibility.”
The issue here is not administration, but merely the ascertainment
of facts. The commission is to receive authorisation to apply the
means necessary for this purpose. That is all. That it is responsible to the
assembly both for negligent and for excessively applied use of these means goes
without saying.
The whole thing has just as little to do with ministerial responsibility and
deputies’ non-responsibility as with “truth”
and “wit”.
Enough, Herr Kühlwetter commended these proposals for the solution of the
collision, under the pretext of the division of powers, to the hearts of the Agreement
deputies, without, however, making any specific proposal. The ministry of action
feels itself on uncertain ground.
We cannot go into the further discussion. The votes are known: the
defeat of the government on the roll-call vote, the coup d’état of the Right, which
subsequently still accepted a question that had already been rejected. We have
already reported all this.
We merely add that among the Rhinelanders who voted against the
unconditional authorisation of the commission, we noticed the following names: 10
Arntz, Dr. jur., Bauerband, Frencken, Lensing, v. Loe, Reichensperger II,
Simons, and last but not least, our Chief Public Prosecutor
Zweiffel.