[New-York Daily Tribune, No. 3432, April 17, 1852] 

On the lst of November Vienna fell, and on the 9th of the same 
month the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in Berlin showed 
how much this event had at once raised the spirit and the strength of 
the counter-revolutionary party all over Germany. 

The events of the summer of 1848 in Prussia are soon told. The 
Constituent Assembly, or rather “the Assembly elected for the 
purpose of agreeing upon a Constitution with the Crown,” and its 
majority of representatives of the middle-class interest, had long 
since forfeited all public esteem by lending itself to all the intrigues 
of the Court, from fear of the more energetic elements of the 
population. They had confirmed, or rather restored, the obnoxious 
privileges of feudalism, and thus betrayed the liberty and the interest 
of the peasantry. They had neither been able to draw up a 
constitution, nor to amend in any way the general legislation. They 
had occupied themselves almost exclusively with nice theoretical 
distinctions, mere formalities, and questions of constitutional 
etiquette. The Assembly, in fact, was more a school of parliamentary 
savoir vivre* for its members, than a body in which the people could 
take any interest. The majorities were, besides, very nicely balanced, 
and almost always decided by the wavering “Centers,” whose 
oscillations from Right to Left, and vice versa, upset first the Ministry 
of Camphausen, then that of Auerswald and Hansemann. But while 
thus the Liberals, here as everywhere else, let the occasion slip out of 
their hands, the Court reorganized its elements of strength among 
the nobility, and the most uncultivated portion of the rural 
population, as well as in the army and bureaucracy. After 

Hansemann’s downfall, a ministry of bureaucrats and military 
officers, all staunch reactionists, was formed, which, however, 
seemingly gave way to the demands of the Parliament; and the 
Assembly, acting upon the commodious principle of “measures, not 
men,” were actually duped into applauding this ministry, while they, 
of course, had no eyes for the concentration and organization of 
counter-revolutionary forces which that same ministry carried on 
pretty openly. At last, the signal being given by the fall of Vienna, the 
King * dismissed his ministers and replaced them by “men of action,” 
under the leadership of the present Premier, M. Manteuffel. Then 
the dreaming Assembly at once awoke to the danger; it passed a vote 
of no confidence in the Cabinet, which was at once replied to by a 
decree removing the Assembly from Berlin, where it might, in case 
of a conflict, count upon the support of the masses, to Brandenburg, 
a petty provincial town dependent entirely upon the Government.” 
The Assembly, however, declared that it could not be adjourned, 
removed, or dissolved, except with its own consent. In the meantime, 
General Wrangel entered Berlin at the head of some forty thousand 
troops. In a meeting of the municipal magistrates and the officers of 
the National Guard, it was resolved not to offer any resistance. And 
now, after the Assembly and its constituents, the Liberal bourgeoisie, 
had allowed the combined reactionary party to occupy every 
important position and to wrest from their hands almost every 
means of defense, began that grand comedy of “passive and legal 
resistance” which they intended to be a glorious imitation of the 
example of Hampden and of the first efforts of the Americans in the 
War of Independence.”' Berlin was declared in a state of siege, and 
Berlin remained tranquil; the National Guard was dissolved by the 
Government, and its arms were delivered up with the greatest 
punctuality. The Assembly was hunted down during a fortnight, 
from one place of meeting to another, and everywhere dispersed by 
the military, and the members of the Assembly begged of the citizens 
to remain tranquil. At last, the Government having declared the 
Assembly dissolved, it passed a resolution to declare the levying of 
taxes illegal,”’ and then its members dispersed themselves over the 
country to organize the refusal of taxes. But they found that they 
had been woefully mistaken in the choice of their means. After a few 
agitated weeks, followed by severe measures of the Government 
against the Opposition, every one gave up the idea of refusing the 
taxes in order to please a defunct Assembly that had not even had 
the courage to defend itself. 

Whether it was, in the beginning of November, 1848, already too 
late to try armed resistance, or whether a part of the army, on 
finding serious opposition, would have turned over to the side of the 
Assembly, and thus decided the matter in its favor, is a question 
which may never be solved. But in revolution, as in war, it is always 
necessary to show a strong front, and he who attacks is in the ad- 
vantage; and in revolution, as in war, it is of the highest necessity to 
stake everything on the decisive moment, whatever the odds may be. 
There is not a single successful revolution in history that does not pro- 
ve the truth of these axioms. Now, for the Prussian Revolution, the 
decisive moment had come in November, 1848; the Assembly, at the 
head, officially, of the whole revolutionary interest, did neither show 
a strong front, for it receded at every advance of the enemy; much 
less did it attack, for it chose even not to defend itself; and when the 
decisive moment came, when Wrangel, at the head of forty thousand 
men, knocked at the gates of Berlin, instead of finding, as he and all 
his officers fully expected, every street studded with barricades, 
every window turned into a loophole, he found the gates open and 
the streets obstructed only by peaceful Berliner burghers, enjoying 
the joke they had played upon him, by delivering themselves up, 
hands and feet tied, unto the astonished soldiers. It is true, the 
Assembly and the people, if they had resisted, might have been 
beaten; Berlin might have been bombarded, and many hundreds 
might have been killed, without preventing the ultimate victory of 
the royalist party. But that was no reason why they should surrender 
their arms at once. A well-contested defeat is a fact of as much 
revolutionary importance as an easily-won victory. The defeats of 
Paris, in June, 1848, and of Vienna, in October, certainly did far 
more in revolutionizing the minds of the people of these two cities 
than the victories of February and March. The Assembly and the 
people of Berlin would, probably, have shared the fate of the two 
towns above-named; but they would have fallen gloriously, and 
would have left behind themselves, in the minds of the survivors, 
a wish of revenge, which in revolutionary times is one of the 
highest incentives to energetic and passionate action. It is a matter 
of course that, in every struggle, he who takes up the gauntlet 
risks being beaten; but is that a reason why he should confess 
himself beaten, and submit to the yoke without drawing the 
sword? 

In a revolution, he who commands a decisive position and 
surrenders it, instead of forcing the enemy to try his hands at an 
assault, invariably deserves to be treated as a traitor. 

The same decree of the King of Prussia which dissolved the 

Constituent Assembly also proclaimed a new Constitution,’ founded 
upon the draft which had been made by a Committee of that 
Assembly, but enlarging, in some points, the powers of the Crown, 
and rendering doubtful, in others, those of the Parliament. This 
Constitution established two Chambers, which were to meet soon for 
the purpose of confirming and revising it. | 
We need hardly ask where the German National Assembly was 
during the “legal and peaceful” struggle of the Prussian Con- 
stitutionalists. It was, as usual, at Frankfort, occupied with passing 
very tame resolutions against the proceedings of the Prussian 
Government, and admiring the “imposing spectacle of the passive, 
legal, and unanimous resistance of a whole people against brutal 
force.”” The Central Government sent Commissioners to Berlin, to 
intercede between the Ministry and the Assembly; but they met the 
same fate as their predecessors at Olmutz, and were politely shown 
out. The Left of the National Assembly, i.e., the so-called Radical 
party, sent also their Commissioners; but after having duly 
convinced themselves of the utter helplessness of the Berlin 
Assembly, and confessed their own equal helplessness, they returned 
to Frankfort, to report progress, and to testify to the admirably 
peaceful conduct of the population of Berlin. Nay, more: when Mr. 
Bassermann, one of the Central Government’s Commissioners, 
reported that the late stringent measures of the Prussian Ministers 
were not without foundation, inasmuch as there had of late been 
seen loitering about the streets of Berlin sundry savage-looking 
characters, such as always appear previous to anarchical movements 
(and which ever since have been named “Bassermannic characters’’), 
these worthy deputies of the Left, and energetic representatives of 
the revolutionary interest, actually arose to make oath and testify 
that such was not the case! Thus, within two months, the total 
impotency of the Frankfort Assembly was signally proved. There 
could be no more glaring proofs that this body was totally inadequate 
to its task; nay, that it had not even the remotest idea of what its task 
really was. The fact, that both in Vienna and in Berlin the fate of the 
revolution was settled, that in both these capitals the most important 
and vital questions were disposed of, without the existence of the 
Frankfort Assembly ever being taken the slightest notice of —this 
fact alone is sufficient to establish that the body in question was a 

mere debating-club, composed of a set of dupes, who allowed the 
governments to use them as a parliamentary puppet, shown to 
amuse the shopkeepers and petty tradesmen of petty States and 
petty towns, as long as it was considered convenient to divert the 
attention of these parties. How long this was considered convenient 
we shall soon see. But it is a fact worthly of attention, that among all 
the “eminent” men of this Assembly, there was not one who had the 
slightest apprehension of the part they were made to perform, and 
that even up to the present day, ex-members of the Frankfort Club 
have invariably organs of historical perception quite peculiar to 
themselves. 

London, March, 1852