The Trial Against Lassalle

Dresden, 1 March. After the close of the joint session, the 11th Chamber remained assembled. Vice-President Tzschirner is given the floor to announce an interpellation concerning the Altenburg excesses. As early as 23 February, the Saxon Corporal Rolke, together with Private Bischof, had come to the house of a master ropemaker for the purpose of a visit. On the door of a room in which journeyman tailors had been working, they had found the word “Republic” written in chalk. The corporal had then spat on the door, wiped the word away and, in doing so, remarked that he would come again and the rest would take care of itself. The journeyman tailors who had written the word were naturally incensed at this and wrote it up again. Whereupon, on 26 February, those two soldiers came again, to proceed in the same manner as before, when one of the journeyman tailors stepped out to object to this. Thereupon the soldiers forced their way in among the journeyman tailors with drawn sabres and struck out at them. The journeyman tailors, finding themselves in the greatest mortal danger, then had to seize hold of every possible weapon in their defence, and one of them struck one of the soldiers hard with a flat-iron. At the same time, however, several more soldiers joined in, and a veritable butchery then commenced. Two persons lie severely ill of their wounds. In the meantime, the rest of the military appeared on the market square and fell in under arms and permitted themselves gross insults against the crowd of people streaming up; soldiers even stepped out of rank and file and committed acts of violence against the new town councillors, who had already assembled earlier before the town hall, and against other persons. One soldier shouted: Just set fire to the whole booth! People who wished to raise objections with the officers were thrown to the ground by the soldiers. One might have thought one was watching Wallenstein’s troops perform a scene. The Altenburg town councillors now turn to the Saxon people’s representatives and beg most earnestly that they be delivered from this plague upon the land. In Altenburg it has been declared that people intend to close their houses to the Saxon soldiers. Every evil is to be feared there; perhaps a Sicilian Vespers is nigh. Much, however, indicates that this brawl had been prepared beforehand. Even before the above-mentioned case, the soldiers had been in a state of agitation; troops had been drawn up from the surrounding area; indeed, it is even said that in Leipzig arrangements had been made to be able to send troops quickly to Altenburg. The soldiers in Altenburg are said to have been drunk, and in the evening patrols themselves had insulted individual persons. A remedy must now be found here. If the central authority is no longer obeyed here, one is independent and must no longer keep silent! The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs has already declared that it is intended to withdraw a part of the troops; he therefore asks whether these troops, and indeed all Saxon troops, can be withdrawn from the vicinity of Altenburg as early as next week. The interpellant thereupon reads out the Altenburg address. Repeated expressions of indignation interrupt this speech. No minister was present; the interpellation has therefore been handed over to the entire ministry in writing. Finally, the Landtag papers on the rules of procedure and on the decree concerning the publication of the basic rights are submitted.
(D. A. Z.) * Hanover, 2 March. In today’s session of the Second Chamber, Buddenberg reports on the result of the conference concerning the basic rights. The Estates cannot share the government’s reservations. They move, by contrast:
1. in order to remove any possible doubts, to bring the basic rights, as well as the imperial laws in general, to general knowledge through the Collection of Laws and to ensure their local publication, insofar as this has not yet taken place;
2. to submit to the Estates, without delay, the laws that are left to the individual states for the further implementation of the basic rights.”
The First Chamber has declared itself in agreement with this resolution, which the Second Chamber has been unable and unwilling to modify, only insofar as it also considers the immediate publication of the basic rights indispensable. The Estates therefore move:
“that the royal government bring the basic rights to general knowledge immediately through the Collection of Laws and submit to the Estates, as soon as possible, the laws left to the individual states that are required for their implementation.”
Stüve leaves the chamber.
The President puts the above conference proposal to the vote. The latter is adopted by all votes against 1 (Windhorst).
Thus the “Basic Rights” are legally valid for Hanover!
Poor Stüve!
34 Darmstadt, 2 March. In a few days we, too, can celebrate a requiem here, a requiem for the people’s freedom, for the day of the people’s uprising and the day on which the people were defrauded of the fruits of its uprising both fall on 6 March here. The prisons full of “political criminals” will soon be the only thing that reminds us of this “glorious time”: In fact, since March they have not been set free again, and often only one is released from his confinement to make room for a later offender. Heinrich v. Gagern was the name of the man who conjured away the Hesse-Darmstadt revolution; and that a Heinrich v. Gagern was able to do so at once characterises the entire significance of this revolution. Let us hope we shall not make a Hesse-Darmstadt revolution again!
However bad the harvest of March 1848 turned out, the princes tremble before the return of the harvest season and have every stirring among the people watched with Argus eyes. When, last week, a few hundred respectable philistines assembled here to discuss a submissive address to the Grand Duke concerning the dissolution of the two chambers and the convening of a legislative assembly, all the troops were at once confined to barracks, in order to ward off any possible assault on the palace! If fear did not make one imbecilic, it would be scarcely explicable how anyone could credit a Darmstadt philistine with such things.
In the neighbouring little town of Bensheim, during Carnival, the municipal council was somewhat mocked; people had the audacity, representing it by straw men, to have it hold a public session in the market square, although it defends itself against publicity with hands and feet; — infantry and cavalry were immediately dispatched thither to “restore peace and order,” and seven innocent citizens were transported here under strong military escort. Indeed, not content with this, an immediate investigation was launched into a conspiracy, and the threads of a secret association in the Odenwald were traced. A secret association to mock an insignificant municipal council!
Towards March, all troops are called in; the aim is to ensure security against any possible fresh outbreak. The Chamber had, of course, given its assent to the increase of the army to 2 per cent of the population; it had, however, attached to this approval the wish that the ministry might take steps with the central impotence to avert this new burden from the people. A perfectly innocent wish! The First Chamber has nonetheless struck it out; the Second Chamber has had the heroism to persist in its earlier resolution. Several further conflicts with the First Chamber are in prospect; there is, however, still some time for this. The First Chamber has indeed already got as far as completing the preparations for debating the new electoral law, according to which, as good-natured souls had hoped, new chambers were to meet as early as March. The committee of the First Chamber has naturally deemed it appropriate that a census of at least 6 florins in tax should be established even for the elections to the Second Chamber, nor is it in entire agreement with the eligibility for the First Chamber. The resolution of the Second Chamber had fixed no census at all for passive eligibility, and a census of 20 florins in direct taxes for active eligibility. Apart from this, it was stipulated that every 1,000 electors should elect one deputy and that the number of electors should be made up from those paying the highest taxes, should not enough persons taxed at 20 florins be found. The committee of the First Chamber, by contrast, demands a tax rate of 200 florins for passive eligibility, or a salary or income of 1,500 florins, or capital assets of 30,000 florins. For active eligibility it is willing to be content with a census of 15 florins; on the other hand, the number of electors is not to be made up from those paying the highest taxes, since otherwise it might happen that even such persons as paid only 1 florin 3 kreuzers in tax would take part in voting.
Until the electoral law is brought about “by constitutional means,” until everything is agreed upon, the year 1850 may easily dawn upon us, and even the ministry with the “most liberal sentiments” may have been sent home by the Russians. Our highly honourable representatives of the Estates do not let the time weigh heavily upon them in the meantime; they consume in the finest leisure their 3 thalers in per diem allowance, which they have deemed too much for their successors, and rejoice that in their sessions, which they hold now and again, there is usually a lack of any agenda at all. A Hesse-Darmstadt deputy’s seat is, in these turbulent times, a splendid sinecure.