We now come to the last chapter in the 
history of the German Revolution : the conflict of 
the National Assembly with the Governments of 
the different States, especially of Prussia; the 
insurrection of Southern and Western Germany, 
and its final overthrow by Prussia. 

We have already seen the Frankfort National 
Assembly at work. We have seen it kicked at by 
Austria, insulted by Prussia, disobeyed by the 
leseer States, duped by its own impotent Central 
“*Government,”’ which again was the dupe oF all 
and every prince in the country. But at fast 
things began to look threatening for this weak 
vacillating, insipid legialative body. It was forced 
to come to the conclusion that “the sublime idea 
of Geren Unity was threatened in its realization,” 
--which meant neither more nor less than that the 
Frankfort Assembly, and all it had done and was 
about to do, were very likely to endin smoke. Thus 
t set to work in guod earnest in order to bring 
forth as soon as possible its grand production, the 
“Imperial Constitution." 

There was, however, one difficulty. What Kx- 
ecutive Government wus there to be? An Execu- 
tive Council? No; that would have been, they 
thonght in their wisdom, making Germany a Re- 
public. A“ President”? That would come to 
the same. ‘Thus thev must revive the old impe- 
rial dignity. But—as of course a prince was to be 
Emperor—who should it be? Certainly none of 
the Dii minorum gentium, from Reusa-Schleitz- 
Greitz-lobenstein-Ebersdorf up to Bavaria; 
neither Austria nor Prussia would have borne that. 

a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims 
with the solemn conviction that the whole world, 
its history and future, are governed and determin- 
ed by a majority of votes in that particular repre- 
sentative body which has the honor to countthem 
among its members, and that 2l] and everything 
going on outside the walls of their house—wars, 
revolutions, railway-constructing, colonizing of 
whole new continents, California gold discoveries, 
Central American canals, Russian armies, and 
whatever else may have some little claim to influ- 
ence upon the destinies of mankind—is nothing 
compared to the incommensurable events hinging 
upon the important question, whatever it may be, 
just at that moment occupying the attention of 
their honorable llouse. Thus it was the Demo- 
cratic party of the Assembly, by effectually smug- 
gling a few of their nostruma into the “ Imperial 
Constitution,” first became bound to support it, 
although in every essential point it Aatly contra- 
dicted their own oft- proclaimed principles; and at 
lest, when this mongrel work was abandoned and 
bequeathed to them by its main authors, accepted 
the inheritance, and held out for this monarchical 
Constitution even in opposition to everybody who 
then proclaimed their own republican principles. 
But it must be confessed that in this the contra- 
diction was merely apparent. The indeterminate, 
self-contradictory, immature character of the Iumn- 
perial Constitution was the very image of the im- 
mature, confused, conflicting political ideas of 
these democratic gentlemen. And if their own 
sayings and writings—as far as they could write— 
were not sufficient proof of this, their actions 
would furnish such proof; for among sensible peo- 
ple it is @ matter of course to judge of a man not 
by his professions but by bis actions; not by what 
he pretends to be, but by what he does and what 
he really is; and the deeds of these heroes of Ger- 
man Democracy epeak loud enough for themseives, 
as we shall learn by and by. However, the linpe- 
tia] Constitution with all its appendages and para- 
phernslia was definitively passed, and un the 28th 
of March the King of I’russia was, by 290 votes. 
against 248 who abstained and some 200 who 
were absent, elected Emperor of Germany, minus 
Austria. The historical irony was complete ; 
the imperial farce executed in the streets of as- 
tonished Berlin, threo days after the Revolution of 
March 18, 1848, by Frederick William LV. while in 
astate which elsewhere would come under the 
Maine Liquor Law—thia disgusting farce, just one 
year afterward, had been sanctioned by the pre- 
teuded Representative Assembly of all Germany. 
That, then, was the result of the German Revolu- 

tion! Kars. Marx. 
Lendon, July, 1252. 

meantime, was framed under such jumping and counter-jumping, 
may easily be imagined. 

.The Left of the Assembly—this élite and pride of revolutionary 
Germany, as it believed itself to be—was entirely intoxicated with the 
few paltry successes it obtained by the good-will, or rather the ill-will, 
of a set of Austrian politicians acting under the instigation and for 
the interest of Austrian despotism. Whenever the slightest approxi- 
mation to their own not-very-well-defined principles had, in a 
homoeopathically diluted shape, obtained a sort of sanction by the 
Frankfort Assembly, these Democrats proclaimed that they had 
saved the country and the people. These poor, weak-minded men, 
during the course of their generally very obscure lives, had been so 
little accustomed to anything like success, that they actually believed 
their paltry amendments, passed with two or three votes’ majority, 
would change the face of Europe. They had from the beginning of 
their legislative career been more imbued than any other fraction of 
the Assembly with that incurable malady, parliamentary cretinism, a 
disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with the solemn 
conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are governed 
and determined by a majority of votes in that particular representa- 
tive body which has the honor to count them among its members, 
and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their 
house—wars, revolutions, railway-constructing, colonizing of whole 
new continents, California gold discoveries, Central American 
canals, Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim 
to influence upon the destinies of mankind —is nothing compared to 
the incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, 
whatever it may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of 
their honorable House. Thus it was the Democratic party of the 
Assembly, by effectually smuggling a few of their nostrums into the 
“Imperial Constitution,” that first became bound to support it, 
although in every essential point it flatly contradicted their own 
oft-proclaimed principles; and at last, when this mongrel work was 
abandoned and bequeathed to them by its main authors, accepted 
the inheritance, and held out for this monarchical Constitution even 
in Opposition to everybody who then proclaimed their own republican 
principles. 

But it must be confessed that in this the contradiction was merely 
apparent. The indeterminate, self-contradictory, immature charac- 
ter of the Imperial Constitution was the very image of the immature, 
confused, conflicting political ideas of these democratic gentlemen. 
And if their own sayings and writings—as far as they could 
write—were not sufficient proof of this, their actions would furnish 

such proof; for among sensible people it is a matter of course to 
judge of a man not by his professions, but by his actions; not by what 
he pretends to be, but by what he does and what he really is; and the 
deeds of these heroes of German Democracy speak loud enough for 
themselves, as we shall learn by and by. However, the Imperial 
Constitution with all its appendages and paraphernalia was defini- 
tively passed, and on the 28th of March the King of Prussia was, by 
290 votes against 248 who abstained and some 200 who were absent, 
elected Emperor of Germany, minus Austria. The historical irony 
was complete; the imperial farce executed in the streets of astonished 
Berlin, three days after the Revolution of March 18, 1848, by 
Frederick William IV,°’ while in a state which elsewhere would come 
under the Maine Liquor Law—this disgusting farce, just one year 
afterward, had been sanctioned by the pretended Representative 
Assembly of all Germany. That, then, was the result of the German 
Revolution! 

London, July, 1852 

XVI 
THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY AND THE GOVERNMENTS 

[New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3537, August 19, 1852] 

The National Assembly of Frankfort, after having elected the King 
of Prussia Emperor of Germany (minus Austria), sent a deputation to 
Berlin to offer him the crown, and then adjourned. On the 3d of 
April Frederick William received the Deputies. He told them that, 
although he accepted the right of precedence over all the other 
Princes of Germany, which this vote of the people’s representatives 
had given him, yet he could not accept the Imperial crown as long as 
he was not sure that the remaining Princes acknowledged his 
supremacy and the Imperial Constitution conferring those rights 
upon him. It would be, he added, for the Governments of Germany 
to see whether this Constitution was such as could be ratified by 
them. At all events, Emperor or not, he always would be found 
ready, he concluded, to draw the sword against either the external or 
the internal foe. We shall soon see how he kept his promise in a 
manner rather startling for the National Assembly. 

The Frankfort wiseacres, after profound diplomatic inquiry, at last 
came to the conclusion that this answer amounted to a refusal of the 
crown. They then (April 12) resolved: That the Imperial Constitu- 
tion was the law of the land, and must be maintained; and not seeing 

their way at all before themselves, elected a Committee of Thirty, to 
make proposals as to the means how this Constitution could be 
carried out. 

This resolution was the signal for the conflict between the 
Frankfort Assembly and the German Governments, which now 
broke out. 

The middle classes, and especially the smaller trading class, had all 
at once declared for the new Frankfort Constitution. They could not 
await any longer the moment which was “to close the revolution.” In 
Austria and Prussia the revolution had, for the moment, been closed 
by the interference of the armed power; the classes in question 
would have preferred a less forcible mode of performing that 
operation, but they had not had a chance; the thing was done, and 
they had to make the best of it, a resolution which they at once took 
and carried out most heroically. In the smaller States, where things 
had been going on comparatively smoothly, the middle classes had 
long since been thrown back into that showy, but resultless, because 
powerless, parliamentary agitation which was most congenial to 
themselves. The different States of Germany, as regarded each of 
them separately, appeared thus to have attained that new and 
definitive form which was supposed to enable them to enter, 
henceforth, the path of peaceful and constitutional development. 
There only remained one open question, that of the new political 
organization of the German Confederacy. And this question, the 
only one which still appeared fraught with danger, it was considered 
a necessity to resolve at once. Hence the pressure exerted upon the 
Frankfort Assembly by the middle classes, in order to induce it to get 
the Constitution ready as soon as possible; hence the resolution 
among the higher and lower bourgeoisie to accept and to support 
this Constitution, whatever it might be, in order to create a settled 
state of things without delay. Thus, from the very beginning, the 
agitation for the Imperial Constitution arose out of a reactionary 
feeling, and sprung up among those classes which were long since 
tired of the revolution. 

But there was another feature in it. The first and fundamental 
principles of the future German Constitution had been voted during 
the first months of spring and summer, 1848—a time when popular 
agitation was still rife. The resolutions then passed—though 
completely reactionary then—now, after the arbitrary acts of the 
Austrian and Prussian Governments, appeared exceedingly liberal, 
and even democratic. The standard of comparison had changed. 
The Frankfort Assembly could not, without moral suicide, strike out 
these once-voted provisions, and model the Imperial Constitution 

upon those which the Austrian and Prussian Governments had 
dictated sword in hand. Besides, as we have seen, the majority in that 
Assembly had changed sides, and the Liberal and Democratic party 
were rising in influence. Thus the Imperial Constitution not only was 
distinguished by its apparently exclusive popular origin, but at the 
same time, full of contradiction as it was, it yet was the most liberal 
Constitution of all Germany. Its greatest fault was, that it was a mere 
sheet of paper, with no power to back its provisions. 

Under these circumstances it was natural that the so-called 
Democratic party, that is, the mass of the petty trading class, should 
cling to the Imperial Constitution. This class had always been more 
forward in its demands than the Liberal Monarchico-Constitutional 
bourgeoisie; it had shown a bolder front, it had very often 
threatened armed resistance, it was lavish in its promises to sacrifice 
its blood and its existence in the struggle for freedom; but it had 
already given plenty of proofs that on the day of danger it was 
nowhere, and that it never felt more comfortable than the day after a 
decisive defeat, when everything being lost, it had at least the 
consolation to know that somehow or other the matter was settled. 
While, therefore, the adhesion of the large bankers, manufacturers 
and merchants was of a more reserved character, more like a simple 
demonstration in favor of the Frankfort Constitution, the class just 
beneath them, our valiant democratic shopkeepers, came forward in 
grand style and, as usual, proclaimed they would rather spill their 
last drop of blood than let the Imperial Constitution fall to the 
ground. 

Supported by these two parties, the bourgeois adherents of 
Constitutional Royalty and the more or less democratic shopkeepers, 
the agitation for the immediate establishment of the Imperial 
Constitution gained ground rapidly, and found its most powerful 
expression in the Parliaments of the several States. The Chambers of 
Prussia, of Hanover, of Saxony, of Baden, of Wurttemberg, declared 
in its favor. The struggle between the Governments and the 
Frankfort Assembly assumed a threatening aspect. 

The Governments, however, acted rapidly. The Prussian Cham- 
bers were dissolved, anti-constitutionally, as they had to revise and 
confirm the Constitution; riots broke out at Berlin, provoked 
intentionally by the Government; and the next day, the 28th of 
April, the Prussian Ministry issued a circular note, in which the 
Imperial Constitution was held up as a most anarchical and 
revolutionary document, which it was for the Governments of 
Germany to remodel and purify. Thus Prussia denied, point-blank, 
that sovereign constituent power which the wise men at Frankfort 

had always boasted of, but never established. Thus a Congress of 
Princes, a renewal of the old Federal Diet, was called upon to sit in 
judgment on that Constitution which had already been promulgated 
as a law. And at the same time Prussia concentrated troops at 
Kreuznach, three days’ march from Frankfort, and called upon the 
smaller States to follow its example by also dissolving their Chambers 
as soon as they should give their adhesion to the Frankfort Assembly. 
This example was speedily followed by Hanover and Saxony. 

It was evident that a decision of the struggle by force of arms could 
not be avoided. The hostility of the Governments, the agitation 
among the people were daily showing themselves in stronger colors. 
The military were everywhere worked upon by the democratic: 
citizens, and in the South of Germany with great success. Large mass 
meetings were everywhere held, passing resolutions to support the 
Imperial Constitution and the National Assembly, if need should be, 
with force of arms. At Cologne, a meeting of deputies of all the 
municipal councils of Rhenish Prussia took place for the same 
purpose. In the Palatinate, at Bergen, Fulda, Nuremberg, in the 
Odenwald, the peasantry met by myriads and worked themselves up 
into enthusiasm. At the same time, the Constituent Assembly of 
France dissolved, and the new elections were prepared amid violent 
agitation, while on the eastern frontier of Germany the Hungarians 
had within a month, by a succession of brilliant victories, rolled back 
the tide of Austrian invasion from the Theiss to the Leitha, and were 
every day expected to take Vienna by storm. Thus, popular 
imagination being on all hands worked up to the highest pitch, and 
the aggressive policy of the Governments defining itself more clearly 
every day, a violent collision could not be avoided, and cowardly 
imbecility only could persuade itself that the struggle was to come off 
peaceably. But this cowardly imbecility was most extensively 
represented in the Frankfort Assembly. 

London, July, 1852