We will express no opinion as to whether the reconstruction of Germany did or did not require the antecedent employment of "blood and iron," but this we will fearlessly assert, that if the ground ploughed up by the cannon-shot of 1866 yields the harvest expected of it, the seed will have been sown by the much-maligned professors whose labours are just now held so cheap by the thankless Fatherland.

That after such prolonged academical preparation the events of 1848 should have had a certain pedantry of form adhering to them is not to be wondered at, and we cannot hope to lay before our readers a clear statement of the struggle which has ever since agitated Germany, without first explaining two scientific terms taken from the political phraseology of the time which meet us at every turn, and for which we know of no English equivalents.

The German professor divides the genus Confederation into two species, the "Staatenbund" and the "Bundesstaat," under one or other of which, or a cross between the two, every individual federal constitution can be brought.

The essence of the "Staatenbund "Anglicè, "States' Confederation "-is that it is international, i.e., that however closely united inter se for particular purposes the individual States composing the union may be, there is no displacement or transfer of sovereignty from the individual units to a common centre. The confederated States may collectively constitute an international unit as regards third parties, but the several partners do not cease to be international units as regards each other. Each retains the plenitude of his sovereign rights, those of external as well as those of internal sovereignty. The exercise of these rights may be, and indeed necessarily is, limited in practice by the objects of the union, such, for instance, as the limitation of the right of making war upon each other, or of entering into foreign alliances; but in theory it is not a surrender of the right, but a voluntary engagement to abstain from using the right.

It follows from this definition that, as an Executive and a Legislature both imply the exercise of sovereign powers, a "Staatenbund," or "States' Confederation," does not admit either of a central executive or of a common legislative body. The articles of union may in certain matters render the will of the majority binding upon the minority, and the Federal decrees or resolutions of such majorities may, as was the case in

The "Bundesstaat "-Anglicè, "Federative State"-is an abstraction originally obtained from the careful analysis made of the United States Constitution by De Tocqueville. As the name implies (the plural, "States," being replaced by the singular, "State "), it presupposes the creation of a political unit, i.e., of a body endowed with sovereign attributes, and therefore excludes the idea of international relations between the members of such a body. The Bundesstaat is a national as opposed to an international union. Its essential characteristics may be resumed as follows:

1. The rights of external and internal sovereignty inherent in the idea of a State are divided between the Federal power and the several States, so that each, the Federal power and the individual State, is exclusively endowed with certain sovereign rights, and consequently that, considered separate ly, each is an incomplete State.

2. The individual subjects or citizens in a Federative State stand in a double and divided allegiance, being on some points exclusively subject to the Federal power, on others exclusively subject to the local power.

3. The Federal power, within its jurisdiction, acts directly and by means of its own organs upon the individual subjects or citizens in the several States, and not, as in the case of the "Staatenbund," indirectly through the individual Governments.

Such being the essence of the Bundesstaat, it follows that its differentia, to use the old logical formula, consists of a centralized Executive and a common Legislature. We may add, as "inseparable accidents," deduced from the practical objects which every Bundesstaat must have in view, and from the nature of the societies in which alone such a form of government could arise

1st, That all rights of external sovereignty will be absorbed by the Federal power.

2dly, That the Legislature will include a national representation of the entire Federal body, elected without reference to the individual States.

If our readers will bear the above abstract in mind, and compare it with their practical knowledge of the working of the American Constitution, they will, we hope, have a tolerably clear idea of the Bundesstaat, and see in what points it differs from the Constitution of the late Germanic Confederation.

As the essence of the Staatenbund consists in its international character, and that of the Bundesstaat in the centralization of certain sovereign attributes, we have in what follows used the terms "International Confederation to denote the former, and "Centralized Confederacy" to denote the latter the literal renderings, "States' Confederation" and "Federative State," not appearing to us as yet sufficiently domesticated in the English language to justify our use of them.

On the 18th of March 1848, the King of Prussia engaged, in a proclamation to his people, that the German International Confederation (Staatenbund) should be replaced by a German Centralized Confederacy (Bundesstaat).

On the 30th of March, the Diet called upon the several Governments of the Confederation to convoke a Parliament, to be elected directly by the nation on the basis of population, which Parliament, in conjunction with the Government, should determine the new form of constitution to be given to Germany.

On the 18th of May, the Parliament met at Frankfort, and, in concert with the Governments, elected the Archduke John of Austria as "Reichsverweser " or Regent of the Empire. The Archduke was to be the irresponsible head of a provisional Executive and to nominate a Ministry responsible to Parliament.

On the 24th of July, the Diet resigned into the hands of the Archduke Regent the powers confided to it by the Acts of 1815 and 1820, and declared itself dissolved.

Thus, before a single paragraph of the future Constitution had been discussed, Germany had constituted herself under a form of Government bearing all the essential features of the Bundesstaat or Centralized Confederacy.

Instead of applying itself at once to the political reconstruction of Germany, the Parliament entered into an exhaustive discussion of the fundamental rights of German citizens, and by this fatal mistake lost its only chance of arriving at a practical result, for during the summer of 1848 the

Frankfort Assembly was omnipotent; and had it before the autumn succeeded in ar riving at a definite result, that result would have been unhesitatingly accepted by the nation, as well as by the then helpless Governments. But by the close of the year the situation was radically changed. Both at Berlin and at Vienna the Crown had recov ered its presence of mind, and power was once more lodged in the hands of energetic Ministers. Whatever the resolve come to by the Parliament, it would have to pass through the ordeal of Prussian and Austrian criticism, and to court the assent of two Powers, able, if they were willing, to veto it.

It was in the winter months of 1848-49 that the debates upon the Constitution at length began. Violent as were the party conflicts upon questions of detail, there was a general consent of opinion upon the main features of the scheme. They were those of the Bundesstaat, · a national Parliament composed of two Houses, one a States' House, the other a Representative Assembly elected directly by the people, a Ministry responsi ble to this Parliament, and a supreme irresponsible head, who, whatever his title, should be invested with the attributes of a constitutional Sovereign. The body to be thus created was to be a Sovereign Unit in regard to all rights of external and to many important rights of internal sovereignty.

It was when the question came to be discussed as to what head should be given to this body, whether the office should be filled by an elected president or by an hereditary monarch, and if by the latter, on whom the crown should devolve, that the Parliament found itself at last face to face with the central difficulty of the German question, viz., the position of Austria in the new Confed eracy.

As soon as the question was submitted to the ordeal of exhaustive discussion, the fol lowing positions came out clearly:

By common agreement-and on this point there was not a dissentient voice-the "Bundesstaat," or Centralized Federative State, was the only form of constitution which could secure the objects desired by the nation, viz., unity without excessive sacrifice of State individuality. But the sovereignty of the "Bundesstaat" is within its assigned sphere supreme, not only over all the States that belong to it, but over the individual citizens composing those States, and conse quently admits of no rival allegiance. If, therefore, the German provinces of Austria were to enter into the proposed "Bundesstaat," it was first necessary that they should be dissevered from their political connexion

Parliament gave him a well grounded claim to this crown, he could not accept it without previous concert with the sovereigns whose rights were involved.

On the 28th of April he declined definitively. By this refusal the moral power of the National, as distinct from the Revolutionary party, was broken; they had lost their only bulwark, the physical support of the one power in Germany able successfully to carry the programme of the nation to a successful issue.

The refusal of the King was followed by revolutionary outbreaks at Dresden, in Baden, and in the Palatinate, and the panicstricken sovereigns, Austria being fully occupied with her Hungarian insurrection, had to apply to Prussia for assistance. Help was immediately vouchsafed, and in a short campaign the arms of Prussia reduced the revolted subjects of the Kings of Saxony and Bavaria and of the Grand Duke of Baden to their allegiance.

It was a proud moment for the King of Prussia, and the crisis was one of the sort especially fitted to flatter his peculiar illusions. Implored by the nation to accept the Imperial crown, he had been unable to conquer

his repugnance to such a title, or his scruples as to infringing upon the divine rights of his sovereign compeers, and had refused the gift. Implored by these compeers to save them from destruction, he had triumphantly done so. What so easy now,

as,

in conjunction with these self-same sovereigns, revived by him, and deeply in his debt, to resume the work of German reform, and to offer to the nation, as a free gift out of the hands of the Lord's Anointed, that which it had sacrilegiously aspired to seize as its right?

Accordingly, the King of Prussia set actively to work to build up the Bundesstaat by voluntary contributions. Conferences were held at Berlin, and on the 28th of May an alliance, known as "The Three Kings' Alliance," between the sovereigns of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover, was concluded. The allies bound themselves to give a Constitution to Germany, conformable to a draft which Prussia drew up, and which was to come into operation as soon as it had obtained the assent of a National Assembly, to be later convoked. All members of the Germanic Confederation, Austria excepted, were invited to join the alliance, with the option of refusing. The international union between Austria and such states as did not join, on the one hand, and the proposed "Bundesstaat" on the other, was to remain such as in the Confederation of 1815. It was within the International Confederation

that the Centralized Confederacy was to take its place.

The Constitution which Prussia drew up kept close to the text of that voted by the Frankfort Assembly, only modifying some of its provisions in a less doctrinaire and more conservative sense. Instead of the hereditary Emperor, however, the Executive was to be confided to Prussia as presiding power, assisted by a board of seven Sove reigns.

By the end of July twenty-nine governments had sent in their adherence to the new Confederacy. But the month of August changed the situation. On the 12th of that month the Hungarian army surrendered at Vilagos; Austria was once more restored to the free use of her strength, and the kings knew that help was near. In September, Bavaria and Würtumberg declined the invitation sent to them, and later in the autumn Saxony and Hanover protested against the Parliament being convoked. Nevertheless, on the 20th of March, 1850, the Parliament met at Erfurt, and accepted en bloc the draft of Constitution submitted to it. According therefore, to the declaration of the 26th of May, that Constitution ought there and then to have come into operation. But Prussia's heart had begun to fail her. A fresh provisorium, for the ostensible purpose of calling the constitution into life, was created, and a congress of the sovereigns composing the Union met at Berlin, but could settle on no definite course of action. Not daring to move forward, still more afraid to step back, the Union stood irresolute, awaiting its death-blow at the hands of Austria.

On the 26th of April, Austria, ignoring all that had taken place since 1848, summoned the Diet to meet at Frankfort.

Eleven Governments answered the call, some of them seceders from the Union. Prussia, in her own name and in that of the Union, refused the invitation. Thus two independent powers, the Diet and the Union, each claiming to represent Germany, and each refusing to acknowledge the other, stood face to face, and the crisis was at hand. Austria took care that the conflict should be quick and decisive. Under her presidency, the Diet, though scarcely numbering onethird of the Governments of the Confedera tion, declared itself competent, and proceeded to draw before its forum the two burning questions of the day, viz., the war still going on between the Duchies of Sleswig and Holstein and the King of Denmark, and the question of the Hessian Constitution.

We will not inflict the former upon our readers; the latter is less known, and more dramatic.

Though the Elector of Hesse appeared at Frankfort, and invoked the aid of the Diet against his subjects, Hesse-Cassel was still a member of the Union, and according to the constitution which the Erfurt parliament had voted, one of the first duties of the Confederacy was the maintenance of the constitutional rights of the several States. As the Elector appealed to Austria and the Diet for assistance, so the Hessian Chambers and the Hessian people looked to Prussia and the Union for protection.

The conflict was a strange one. It had not arisen in the defence of rights acquired during the revolutionary period of 1848, but in that of a constitution that had been in force for twenty years, and with respect to whose provisions no doubt or équivoque could exist. The minister Hassenpflug, who had the management of it, was a man of notoriously bad character, who had once been tried for forgery. During its entire continuance no act of violence or even disturbance occurred. It was carried on between the Elector, and his Minister on the one hand, and the Chambers, the public employés from the highest to the lowest, the tribunals, and lastly the army, on the other; not that the army revolted, but that the entire body of officers, rather than break their oath to the constitution by disobeying the decisions of the tribunal, sent in their collective resignations-four generals, seven colonels, twenty lieutenant-colonels, with majors, captains and lieutenants in proportion, in all 241 officers, a fact probably without precedent in constitutional history.

It was to back up such a Government in such a conflict that the Diet decreed a Federal execution in Hesse, and that an Austrian and Bavarian army were appointed to carry it out.

The sequel is well known. Prussia made just sufficient show of resistance to add military disgrace to political defeat. She placed her entire army upon a war-footing, entered the Electorate amidst the cheers and acclamations of the population, who hailed her as deliverer, and occupied Cassel and the military roads. On the 6th of November, near the village of Bronzell, not far from the old cathedral town of Fulda, Austrian and Prussian outposts met, and shots were exchanged. An old grey mare, it is said, ridden by a Prussian trumpeter, bit the dust. This was the battle of Bronzell. It was the beginning of the end. Two days later, Count Brandenburg, the Prussian Prime Minister, a brave and honest old soldier, but whose strong conservative feelings and hatred of all things labelled liberal or national unfitted him for the post he held at

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a moment when Prussia's only chance was to appeal to the national feeling, died of a broken heart. Manteuffel succeeded him. Another twenty-four hours and all was over. Prussia had surrendered at discretion, and sent the order for the recall of her troops. By the punctuation of Olmütz she engaged to dissolve the Union, to attend at Frankfort, and to give Austria carte blanche to settle the Sleswig-Holstein and Hessian questions as she thought fit. She asked as a favour, and the favour was granted, that one battalion, at least, of Prussian troops should be allowed to remain in the Electorate, and look on at the dragonnades inflicted upon the constitutional Hessians.

Once more, as in 1815, Austria and Prussia had played for the hegemony of Germany, and once more Prussia had been beaten, and Austria had been victorious. But it had been a rougher game than the courtly one played amidst the feasts and banquets of the Vienna Congress. The Prussian uniform had been dragged in the mud; i. e., the Prussian army having been mobilized,-the entire male population between the ages of twenty and thirty-eight had each, in his own person, been identified with the disgrace of the Hessian catastrophe. Into the soul of one man the iron penetrated deep. The then Prince, now King, of Prussia, retired to the Rhine Province, in voluntary exile, refused to have any intercourse with the Ministry who had signed the punctuation of Olmütz, and during the remaining portion of his brother's reign brooded over the humiliation of his country.

If we examine into the causes of this defeat, though undoubtedly much is to be laid to the account of the weak and vacillating character of King Frederick-William IV., we shall nevertheless again meet with the phenomena with which the negotiations of 1814 have made us familiar. Austria thoroughly knew her own mind, and what she wanted. She knew who were her allies, and that her policy was to be wholly and entirely the ally of those allies. L'ami de ses amis, she would claim their services, but she would render full service in exchange. Thirty years, and above all, the exhaustive discussions of the Frankfort Parliament, had placed the conditions of the political problem to be solved in a far clearer light than they had been in 1815. The national reconstruction of Germany meant the Centralized Confederacy, the Centralized Confederacy meant a sovereign body into which no fragments from another body owing allegiance to another sovereign could be admitted. It meant, therefore, the exclusion of Austria from Germany. Now this the Austrian