Since the expression “liberal opposition” in the title originated 
not with the author of the article in question, but with the editorial 
board, the latter takes this occasion to add something to explain 
this designation. 

Two reasons are put forward against this expression. As regards 
its form, it is said that the opposition is not liberal, because it is 
conservative, because it aims at the continuance of an existing legal 
situation. According to this dialectic, the July revolution was a 
conservative and therefore illiberal revolution, for it aimed first of 
all at preserving the Charte.* Nevertheless, liberalism claimed the 
July revolution as its own. Liberalism, of course, is conservative, it 
conserves freedom and, in the face of the assaults of crude, 
material force, even the stunted status quo forms of freedom. It 
should be added that, if such an abstraction wishes to be con- 
sistent, from its own point of view the opposition of a legal situa- 
tion dating from the year 1833 must be regarded as progressive 
and liberal compared with a reaction which is forcing the year 
33 back to the year 19.% 

As regards the content, it is further contended that the content 
of the opposition, the fundamental state law of 1833, is not 
a content of freedom. Granted! However little the fundamental 
state law of 1833 is an embodiment of freedom when measured 
by the idea of freedom, it is very much an embodiment of free- 
dom when measured by the existence of the fundamental state 
law of 1819. Altogether, it is not a question primarily of the 
particular content of this law; it is a question of opposing illegal 
usurpation in favour of legal content. 


In Connection with Article “Failures of Liberal Opposition...” 265 


The editorial board was the more entitled to call the Hanover 
opposition liberal since almost all German assemblies acclaimed it 
as a liberal opposition, as an opposition of legal freedom. Whether 
it deserves this predicate when looked at from the judgment seat 
of criticism, whether it has progressed beyond the mere opinion 
and pretension of being liberal to real liberalism, to examine this 
was precisely the task of the article in question. 

Incidentally, we point out that in our view true liberalism in 
Hanover in the future has neither to champion the fundamental 
state law of 1833 nor to hark back to the law of 1819, but must 
strive for a completely new form of state corresponding to a more 
profound, more thoroughly educated and freer popular conscious- 
ness. 


The editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung