{Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 100, September 12, 1848] 

Cologne, September 11. Anyone reading the reports from Berlin 
printed below can judge for himself whether we predicted the course 
of the government crisis correctly. The Ministers resigned; it seems 
that the camarilla did not approve of the Government’s plan to 
dissolve the Agreement Assembly and to use martial law and guns in 
order to remain in office. The junkers from the Uckermark are 
thirsting for a conflict with the people and a repetition of the 
Parisian June scenes in the streets of Berlin, but they will never fight 
for the Hansemann Government, they will fight for a Government 
of the Prince of Prussia. The choice will fall on Radowitz, Vincke and 
similar reliable men who keep aloof from the Berlin Assembly and 
are in no way committed to it. The Government of the Prince of 
Prussia which is to be bestowed on us will comprise the cream of the 
Prussian and Westphalian knights associated for form’s sake with a 
few bourgeois worthies from the extreme Right, such as Beckerath 
and his like, to whom will be assigned the conduct of the prosaic 
commercial side of the business of state. Meanwhile hundreds of 
rumours are being spread, Waldeck or Rodbertus is perhaps 
summoned, and public opinion is misled, while at the same time 
military preparations are being made to come out openly at the 
appropriate moment. 

We are facing a decisive struggle. The simultaneous crises at 
Frankfurt and Berlin and the latest decisions of the two Assemblies 
compel the counter-revolution to wage its last fight. If the 
counter-revolution in Berlin dares to spurn the constitutional 
principle of majority rule, if it confronts the 219 members of the 
majority with twice as many guns, if it dares to defy the majority not 

only in Berlin but also in Frankfurt by presenting to them a 
Government which is quite unacceptable to either of the two 
Assemblies —if it thus provokes a civil war between Prussia and 
Germany, then the democrats know what they have to do. 

[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 101, September 13, 1848] 

Cologne, September 12. Although already by midday we may 
receive news of the definite formation of a new Government as 
described by us yesterday and confirmed from other quarters, the 
government crisis in Berlin continues. There are only two solutions 
to this crisis: 

Either a Waldeck Government, recognition of the authority of the 
German National Assembly and recognition of popular sovereignty; 

Or a Radowitz-Vincke Government, dissolution of the Berlin 
Assembly, abolition of the revolutionary gains, a sham constitutional]- 
ism or even the United Diet. 

Don’t let us shut our eyes to the fact that the conflict which has 
broken out in Berlin is a conflict not between the agreers and the 
Ministers, but between the Assembly, which for the first time acts as a 
Constituent Assembly, and the Crown. 

The point is whether or not the latter will have the courage to 
dissolve the Assembly. 

But has the Crown the right to dissolve the Assembly? 

True, in constitutional states the Crown in case of disputes has 
the right to dissolve the legislative chambers convened on the basis 
of the Constitution and to appeal to the people by means of new 
elections. 

Is the Berlin Assembly a constitutional, legislative chamber? 

It is not. It has been convened “to come to an agreement with the 
Crown on the Prussian Constitution”, it has been convened not on 
the basis of a Constitution, but on that of a revolution. It received its 
mandate by no means from the Crown or from the Ministers 
answerable to the Crown, but from those who elected it and from the 
Assembly itself. The Assembly was sovereign as the legitimate 
expression of the revolution, and the mandate which Herr 
Camphausen jointly with the United Diet prepared for it in the 
shape of the electoral law of April 8 was nothing but a pious wish, in 
regard to which the Assembly had to decide. 

At first the Assembly more or less accepted the theory of 
agreement. It realised that in doing so it had been cheated by the 
Ministers and the camarilla. At last it performed a sovereign act, 

The Crisis and the Counter-Revolution 429 

acting for a moment as a constituent assembly and no longer as an 
Assembly of Agreement. 

Being the sovereign Assembly of Prussia, it had a perfect right to 
do this. : 

A sovereign assembly, however, cannot be dissolved by anybody, 
and cannot be given orders by anybody. 

Even as a mere Agreement Assembly, even according to Herr 
Camphausen’s own theory, it has equal status with the Crown. Both 
parties conclude a political treaty, both parties have an equal share of 
sovereignty—that is the theory of April 8, the Camphausen- 
Hansemann theory, the official theory recognised by the Crown 
itself. 

If the Assembly and the Crown have equal rights, then the Crown has 
no right to dissolve the Assembly. , 

Otherwise, to be consistent, the Assembly would also have the right 
to depose the King. 

The dissolution of the Assembly would therefore be a coup d’état. 
And how people reply to a coup d’état was demonstrated on July 29, 
1830, and February 24, 1848.? 

One may say the Crown could appeal again to the same voters. But 
who does not know that today the voters would elect an entirely 
different assembly, an assembly which would treat the Crown with 
much less ceremony? 

Everyone knows that after the dissolution of this Assembly it will 
only be possible to appeal to voters of an entirely different kind from 
those of April 8, that the only elections possible will be elections 
carried through under the tyranny of the sword. 

Let us have no illusions. 

If the Assembly wins and succeeds in setting up a Left 
Government, then the power of the Crown existing alongside the 
Assembly is broken, then the King is merely a paid servant of the 
people and we return again to the morning of March 19—provided 
the Waldeck Government does not betray us, as did many a 
Government before it. 

If the Crown wins and succeeds in setting up a Government of the 
Prince of Prussia, then the Assembly will be dissolved, the right of 
association abolished, the press muzzled, an electoral law based on 
property qualifications introduced, and, as we have already men- 
tioned, even the United Diet may be reinvoked—and all this will be 
done under cover of a military dictatorship, guns and bayonets. 

* The reference is to the overthrow of Charles X in July 1830 and of Louis 
Philippe in February 1848.— Ed. 

Which of the two sides will win depends on the attitude of the 
people, especially that of the democratic party. It is up to the 
democrats to choose. 

We have again the situation of July 25. Will they dare to issue the 
decrees being devised in Potsdam? Will the people be provoked to 
make the leap from July 26 to February 24 in a single day??” 

The will to do it is certainly there, but what about the courage! 

[Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 102, September 14, 1848] 

Cologne, September 13. The crisis in Berlin has advanced a step 
further. The conflict with the Crown, which yesterday could still be 
described as inevitable, has actually taken place. 

Our readers will find below the King’s reply to the resignation of 
the Ministers.” By this letter the Crown itself comes to the fore, 
sides with the Ministers and opposes the Assembly. 

It goes even further—it forms a Government outside the As- 
sembly, it nominates Beckerath, who represents the extreme Right at 
Frankfurt and who, as everyone knows, will never be able to count on 
the support of the majority in Berlin. 

The King’s message is countersigned by Herr Auerswald. Let Herr 
Auerswald, if he can, justify the fact that he thus uses the Crown to 
cover up his ignominious retreat, that at one and the same time he 
tries to hide behind the constitutional principle as far as the 
Chamber is concerned and tramples on the constitutional principle 
by compromising the Crown and invoking the republic. 

Constitutional principle! shout the Ministers. Constitutional prin- 
ciple! shouts the Right. Constitutional principle! faintly echoes the 
Kolnische Zeitung. 

“Constitutional principle!” Are these gentlemen really so foolish 
as to believe that it is possible to extricate the German people from 
the storms of 1848, and from the imminent threat of collapse of all 
traditional institutions, by means of the Montesquieu-Delolme 
worm-eaten theory of division of powers, by means of worn-out 
phrases and long exploded fictions! 

“Constitutional principle!” But the very gentlemen who want to 
save the constitutional principle at all costs should realise first of all 
that at a provisional stage it can only be saved by energetic action. 

“Constitutional principle!” But the vote of the Berlin Assembly, 
the clashes between Potsdam and Frankfurt, the disturbances, the 
reactionary attempts, the provocations of the brutal soldiery—has all . 
this not shown long ago that despite all the empty talk we are still ona 

The Crisis and the Counter-Revolution 43] 

revolutionary basis, and the pretence that we have already reached the 
basis of an established, complete constitutional monarchy only leads to 
collisions, which have already brought the “constitutional principle” 
to the brink of the abyss? 

Every provisional political set-up following a revolution requires a 
dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. From the very 
beginning we blamed Camphausen for not having acted in a 
dictatorial manner, for not having immediately smashed up and 
removed the remains of the old institutions. While thus Herr 
Camphausen indulged in constitutional dreaming, the defeated 
party strengthened its positions within the bureaucracy and in the 
army, and occasionally even risked an open fight. The Assembly was 
convened for the purpose of agreeing on the terms of the 
Constitution. It existed as an equal party alongside the Crown. Two 
equal powers in a provisional situation! It was this division of powers 
with the aid of which Herr Camphausen sought “to save free- 
dom”—it was this very division of powers in a provisional situation 
that was bound to lead to conflicts. The Crown served as a cover for 
the counter-revolutionary aristocratic, military and bureaucratic 
camarilla. The bourgeoisie stood behind the majority of the 
Assembly. The Government tried to mediate. Too weak to act 
resolutely on behalf of the bourgeoisie and the peasants and 
overthrow the power of the nobility, the bureaucracy and the army 
chiefs at one blow, too unskilled to avoid always harming the 
bourgeoisie by its financial measures, the Government merely 
succeeded in compromising itself in the eyes of all the parties and 
_ bringing about the very clash it sought to avoid. 

In any unconstituted state of affairs it is solely the salut public, the 
public welfare, and not this or that principle that is the decisive 
factor. The only way in which the Government could avoid a conflict 
between the Assembly and the Crown lay in recognising the public 
welfare as the sole principle, even at the risk of the Government itself 
coming into conflict with the Crown. But it preferred “not to 
compromise” itself in Potsdam. It never hesitated to employ public 
welfare measures (mesures de salut public), dictatorial measures, 
against the democratic forces. What else was the application of the 
old laws to political crimes, even after Herr Marker had recognised 
that these articles of the Prussian Law ought to be repealed? What 
else were the wholesale arrests in all parts of the kingdom? 

But the Government carefully refrained from intervening against 
the counter-revolution in the name of public welfare. 

It was this half-heartedness of the Government in face of the 
counter-revolution, which became more menacing with every day, 

that compelled the Assembly itself to dictate measures of public 
welfare. If the Crown represented by the Ministers was too weak, 
then the Assembly itself had to intervene. It did so by the 
resolution of August 9. It did so in a form still rather mild, by merely 
warning the Ministers. The Ministers took no notice of it. 

Indeed, how could they have agreed to it? The resolution of 
August 9 flouted the constitutional principle, it is an encroachment 
of the legislative power on the executive power, it destroys the 
‘division of powers and their mutual control, which are essential in 
the interests of freedom, it turns the Assembly of Agreement into a 
National Convention. 

There follows a running fire of threats, a vociferous appeal to the 
fears of the petty bourgeois and the prospect of a reign of terror with 
guillotines, progressive taxes, confiscations and the red flag. 

To compare the Berlin Assembly with the Convention. What 
irony! 

But these gentlemen were not altogether wrong. If the Govern- 
ment continues in the way it has been doing, we shall have a 
Convention before long—not merely for Prussia, but for Germany as 
a whole—a Convention which will have to use all means to cope with 
the civil war in our twenty Vendées and with the inevitable war with 
Russia. At present, however, we merely have a parody of the 
Constituent Assembly.” 

But how have the Ministers who invoke the constitutional principle. 
upheld this principle? 

On August 9, they calmly allowed the Assembly to break up in the 
belief that the Ministers would carry out the resolution. They had no 
intention of making known to the Assembly their refusal to do so, 
and still less of resigning their office. 

.They ruminated on the matter for a whole month and finally, 
when threatened with a number of parliamentary questions, they 
curtly informed the Assembly that it was self-evident that they would 
not put the resolution into effect. 

When the Assembly thereupon instructs the Ministers, neverthe- 
less, to put the resolution into effect, they take refuge behind the 
Crown, and cause a rupture between the Crown and the Assembly, 
thus invoking the republic. 

And these gentlemen still talk about the constitutional principle! 

To sum up: 

The inevitable conflict between two powers having equal rights in 
a provisional situation has broken out. The Ministry was unable to” 
govern with sufficient energy; it has failed to take the necessary 
measures of public welfare. The Assembly has merely performed its 

The Crisis and the Counter-Revolution 433 

duty in demanding that the Ministry do its duty. The Ministry 
declares this to be an encroachment upon the rights of the Crown 
and discredits the Crown at the very moment of its resignation. The 
Crown and the Assembly confront each other. The “agreement” has 
led to separation, to conflict. It is possible that arms will decide the 
issue. 

The side that has the greater courage and consistency will win. 

. [Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 104, September 16, 1848] 

Cologne, September 15. The government crisis has once again 
entered a new phase, due, not to the arrival and vain efforts of the 
impossible Herr Beckerath, but to the army revolt in Potsdam and 
Nauen.”*” The conflict between democracy and aristocracy has 
broken out even within the guard regiments. The soldiers consider that 
the resolution carried by the Assembly on the 7th liberates them 
from the tyranny of their officers; they cheer the Assembly and send 
letters of thanks to it. 

This has wrenched the sword from the hands of the counter- 
revolutionaries. They will not dare now to dissolve the Assembly, and 
since this cannot be attempted, they will have to give in, carry out the 
resolution of the Assembly and form a Waldeck Ministry. 

It is quite possible that the soldiers in revolt at Potsdam will save us 
a revolution.