the Federal Council, we shall find that it is in these bodies that the unit we seek resides. The Directory, within the sphere of its competency, is invested with the fullest executive powers. To it is intrusted the care of the external and internal security of Germany, and of her position as a political power. It decides upon all questions by a simple majority. In case there is reason to apprehend danger to the Federal territory from foreign aggression, or supposing that the European balance of power appears threatened in a manner likely to be dangerous to the security of the German Confederation, the Directory is at once to take the necessary steps to avert the danger. It has to appoint a Federal General, to see to the armament and the provisioning of the Federal fortresses, and, if necessary, to place the Federal army, in part or in whole, upon a war footing. The actual decision as to whether war shall be declared or not was to be in the hands of the Federal Council, i.e., of the Governments of the Confederation, acting through their diplomatic Plenipotentiaries, and by means of a voting apparatus in which, be it remembered, Prussia and Austria had each of them only got of the voting power. A majority of two-thirds is required to vote an ordinary war; but in the event of a war threatening the non-German possessions of a member of the Confederation, the question as to whether the Confederation shall or shall not participate in such war is to be decided by a simple majority. manner dangerous to the security of Ger many, and without more ado have put the entire Federal army on a war footing. Upon the relations between the Austrian and French Cabinets becoming more com plicated, they might have summoned the Federal Council, and put to the vote whether the Italian possessions of Austria being threatened, Germany should not at once de clare war against France, and the question might, and under the circumstances certainly would, have been carried affirmatively by a majority, though possibly one only of eleven against ten. Now, under these circumstances, Prussia would in the first stage, whether her Sovereign willed it or no, whether her Parliament wished it or not, by the mere ipse dixit of the Emperor of Austria and the Kings of Bavaria and Saxony, have had to put her Federal contingent of 150,000 men upon a war footing, at a cost of many millions of thalers, and to assume a hostile attitude towards Italy and France. In the second stage, she, and perhaps a majority of the States of Northern Germany, would against their will have been dragged into a war on the Rhine for the maintenance of Austrian supremacy and ultramontane principles in Italy. The Congress had taken the public so by surprise, Austria was at the time so popu lar, the Prussian Government so unpopular, that at the first blush, and before the programme had been thoroughly weighed and its bearings understood, there was an undoubted current of public approval in its favour. But this current soon changed. A Congress held simultaneously at Frankfort, composed of actual or former members of German Legislatures, some 400 strong, and representing in its composition the bulk of the Liberal and National party throughout Germany, although assuming a friendly at titude towards the Congress of Sovereigns, passed resolutions declaring that a National Parliament elected directly by the people, and a central Executive concentrated in one hand, and responsible to that Parliament, remained the unalterable goal of the nation. It could not have expressed a more complete condemnation of the scheme voted by the Sovereigns. No more need be said to show the drift and purpose of the entire plan. It would be easy to reduce it theoretically ad absurdum, by showing that it presupposed the possibility of a majority in the Federal Council deciding upon an aggressive war against the will of Austria and Prussia (who would nevertheless have been bound to participate in it), and without the nation having been consulted, either collectively or in the Parliaments of the several States. But rather than imagine an extreme case of this kind, which, it would be fair to urge, could never arise in practice, let us suppose this Constitution to have been in force in 1859, and see how it would then have worked. Suppose the Directory to have The feeling of disappointment grew strongconsisted of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Sax-er and stronger as the true character of the ony, and Grand-Ducal Hesse. Upon its scheme became better appreciated, and the becoming manifest that France and Italy popularity of Austria decreased in propor were taking up a hostile attitude in regard tion as the public began to perceive that to the Italian question, Austria, Bavaria, and they had been duped into applauding, as a Saxony outvoting Prussia and Hesse in the measure of reform, a movement of which Directory might have decided that the Eu- the real purpose was to cancel such limited ropean equilibrium was threatened in a control as the nation actually possessed over its international relations by means of its local Parliaments, and to place the blood and treasure of Germany at the absolute disposal of a small coterie of Sovereigns, rendered irresponsible by the mechanism of the proposed Constitution. making up the necessary seven votes, could be put together, numbering only two millions. The second condition contained an emphatic protest against the claim to the hegemony of Germany which Austria had, on the occasion of the Würzburg programme, put forward as deducible from her right of presidency in the Diet, and which appeared to be reasserted in the claim to the exclusive presidency of the Directory. It was in the third condition, however, The King of Prussia was the only Sovereign absent from the Congress. He had remained on a visit to his daughter at BadenBaden. The King of Saxony had been deputed by the Congress to go in person and solicit his attendance, but he remained deaf to all entreaty. Engaged in a struggle àthat the real strength of Prussia's position l'outrance with a large majority of his own subjects,-standing apart and isolated from his crowned peers, the whole current of public opinion setting against him, the situation was one which it required an exceptional amount of self-confidence to face. The programme, with certain amendments, was voted by a large majority of the Sovereigns, and forwarded to Berlin. The reply of the Prussian Cabinet is conclusive. It takes to pieces bit by bit the elaborate mechanism by which the real forces of the nation, viz., the Prussian State and the German people, are sought to be made willless instruments in the hands of an artificial majority, which, when tried by the test of population and the capacity of rendering effectual services to the common country, shrinks into a small minority; and it lays down three conditions as those which must be accepted before Prussia can enter into the discussion of any plan of reform 1. Prussia and Austria each to have a veto in reference to wars not of a defensive kind voted by the Federal Council. 2. Prussia to be placed in a position of parity with Austria in the Directory. 3. Substitution for the Assembly of Delegates of a National Assembly elected directly by the people, on the basis of population, and according to a liberal franchise, and the investment of this Assembly with far wider attributes than those proposed for the Assembly of Delegates-in other words, with political no less than legislative attributes. On the first head the Prussian memorandum conclusively urged that Prussia had at least the right to claim as much for herself and her fourteen and a half millions of Germans as was accorded to a third of the votes in the Federal Council. Any minority representing one-third of the votes in the Federal Council could veto a war, but, examined by the test of population, the most powerful third that could be imagined, viz., the four kingdoms, Baden and the two Hesses, only made up twelve millions of inhabitants, whereas twenty-four States, was made manifest, and that the extent to which the Coalition had succeeded in opening the eyes of even Prussian statesmen to the true position of Prussia in Germany became apparent. Prussia, argues the Prussian memorandum, is called upon to part with a portion of her independence, and to enter into engagements seriously hampering her freedom of action as a great Power; and when she examines in favor of whom these sacrifices are to be made, she finds that it is not the nation or Germany, but those elements which stand, if not in actual opposition to, at least apart from, the body of the nation, and whose centre of gravitation is not necessarily in Germany. In a word, she is called upon to sacrifice her own Particularism to the Particularism of others, and this she will not do. If she is to part with any portion of her independence, she can only do so in favour of a body whose interests, desires, and requirements are identical with those of the German people; and such a body can alone be found in a national representation of the German people. The antagonism between diverging dynastic interests cannot be summarily disposed of by the off-hand process of a majority in the Directory; the only element capable of reconciling such antagonism, in the interest of the German community at large, is an assembly representing Germany in its entirety. Such an assembly can alone afford to Prussia the necessary guarantee that she will be called upon to make no sacrifices but such as shall be for the benefit of Germany. No mere rearrangement of Federal mechanism, however artistic, will suffice to exclude the play of dynastic interests, which can only find their counterpoise and corrective in a national representation. In an assembly elected directly, and in the ratio of population, by the entire German people, the centre of gravity can neither fall outside of Germany, nor settle in a part * Report of the Ministry to the King, of the 10th October, 1863. whose tendencies should chance to lie in a | dizement of Prussia, when the only motive direction opposed to those of the whole. Into such an assembly, therefore, Prussia can confidently enter. The interests and requirements of the Prussian people are essentially and inseparably identified with those of the German people. Hence, in a body in which the latter element obtains its proper weight and significance, Prussia need never fear to be drawn into a policy opposed to her own interests. When we sum up the results of the Austrian programme and the Prussian reply, we become conscious of the reality of the two principles for which the tribunes of the people contended so fiercely in 1849, and which, after fermenting for half a generation through all classes of the community, had at last taken flesh in the independent action of the two great Powers. We are also able to estimate the organic relation, as distinct from mere political accident, in which Austria and Prussia respectively stood towards Germany. The most which an Austrian Liberal Government, in the zenith of its popularity, and straining every nerve to win golden opinions in Germany, could bid, amounted, when analysed into its component parts, to a stereotyping of the territorial divisions of Germany, and to the mechanical subjection of a minority of the territories to the will of the majority. The least which the most reactionary Government which had ruled in Prussia since 1848 could offer, was that German Parliament, which all true patriots, by common consent, looked to as the only effectual means of breaking down the territorial partition walls of the Fatherland, and giving to the political soul of Germany a body wherein she could reside. Once more, as immediately before the battle of Bronzell, Austria and Prussia stood each committed to a programme for the reconstruction of Germany absolutely irreconcileable the one with the other. Whither would these cross roads lead them? For better or for worse, the death of the King of Denmark and the events of 1864 put a stop for a time to the controversy. The political incidents of the wars waged by Austria and Prussia against Denmark, and by Prussia against Austria and Germany, bear so recent a date, and at the time so exclusively occupied the attention of the European public, that we need not dwell on them here. The skill with which a national war was coined into a political one; the cynical adroitness with which the partnership of Austria was secured for a campaign having for its object the territorial aggran or excuse for such a campaign on the part of Austria would have been the maintenance, or rather acquisition, of a standing ground vis-à-vis of the National party; the consequent shipwreck of Austria in public opinion; the foresight with which, when preparing for the last great struggle, the National programme was put forward extramurally, not only without any attempt to conciliate the National party within the walls, but without one moment's relaxation of the conflict carried on against it, so that if matters went well no previous engage ments should hamper Prussia in the application of her successes to purely Prussian uses, or dim the lustre of a victory gained solely by the King, his Conservative Ministry, and his reorganized army, and if matters went ill, the National party might be rallied as reserves;-all these things being fresh in the reader's memory, we are enabled to proceed at once to an examination of the edifice in the course of construction upon the tabula rasa created by the battle of Sadowa. The present Constitution of Germany is based upon the treaty of peace concluded with Austria, known as the Treaty of Prague; on the treaties of peace, and those of offence and defence, concluded with those other belligerent States of Germany which were not incorporated into the Prussian monarchy; on the treaties concluded between Prussia and the States north of the Main, in virtue of which the North German Confederation came into life; on a variety of other treaties and conventions entered into between Prussia and the States north and south of the Main; and lastly, on the treaties concluded between the North German Confederation, as an independent international unit, and the States or fractions of States south of the Main. We cannot examine these numerous instruments in detail, and must confine ourselves to giving a general idea of their results. The treaty of Prague furnishes the first rough outline of the new configuration which it is intended should be assumed by Germany. Austria secedes from the Germanic Confederation, and consents to the reconstruction of Germany independently of her; i. e., she is excluded from Germany. A more or less imaginary line, called the Main, divides what remains of the Fatherland into two unequal halves. North of this line Prussia may do as she listeth, except that Saxony is not to be incorporated. It is tacitly understood that she will, with this one exception, annex the Northern States which took part in the war against her, as well as the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, with which she was not engaged in hostilities, and it is distinctly asserted that she will form a close confederacy with the rest. The States south of this line are to form a confederation inter se, which, when constituted, is to enter into a National union with the North German Confederation. It was to this that the preliminary treaty of Nikolsburg confined its description of the future relations between the North and South; but in the treaty of Prague an additional sentence is introduced, distinctly stipulating that the Southern Confederation shall have an independent international existence, so that, according to the paragraph as it now stands, an international unit is to be nationally united with another international unit. We have already pointed out the contradiction which exists in Federal phraseology between a national and an international union; and it is not easy to account for the presence of so glaring a departure from the recognised use of these terms as that which meets us in the paragraph in question. It would almost seem as if, by the wording of the treaty of Nikolsburg, a door had been left intentionally open for the ultimate fusion of the two Confederations into a National Bundesstaat, and as if some influence had been exerted to modify this intention; and we are involuntarily reminded of the presence upon the scene of action of a French Plenipotentiary, and of the letter in which the Emperor Napoleon explained what were his views in regard to the reconstruction of Germany.* Be this as it may, the wording of the 4th paragraph of the treaty of Prague remains obscure, and open to contradictory interpretation. It was probably intended that it should be so, the draughtsman of the treaty not bearing in mind the Nemesis which usually attends upon all such diplomatic word-fencing, and places in the hand of the adversary the weapons intended to be used against him. The treaties of peace concluded with the Southern States afford no additional light "Le conflit qui s'est élevé a trois causes. La situation géographique de la Prusse mal délimitée. Le voeu de Allemagne demandant une reconstitution politique plus conforme à ses besoins généraux. La nécessité pour l'Italie d'assurer son indépendance. Nous aurions, en ce qui nous concerne, désiré pour les Etats secondaires de la Confédération une "union" plus intime, une organisation plus puissante, un rôle plus important; pour la Prusse plus d'homogénéité et de force dans le Nord; pour l'Autriche le maintien de sa grande position en Allemagne. -Letter of the Emperor Napoleon to M. Drouyn de Lhuys of 11th June, 1866. See supra, p. 257. on the subject, as the contracting parties only bind themselves to accept the provisions of the treaty of Prague. Certain other treaties, however, concluded with Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden, and, though kept secret at the time, signed the same day as the treaties of peace, modify in an important manner the future international relations between Prussia and those States. By these treaties the contracting parties guarantee to each other the possession of their respective territories, and for this purpose engage, in case of war, to place their entire military forces at each other's disposal; the Kings of Würtemberg and Bavaria and the Grand-Duke of Baden binding themselves in such an event to intrust the supreme command of their respective armies to the hands of the King of Prussia. No corresponding treaty was concluded with the Grand-Duchy of Hesse, though, with the exception of its northern provinces, that State lies south of the Main. In lieu thereof a convention was agreed to, by which, though only the northern provinces of the Grand-Duchy belong politically to the North German Confederation, the entire military forces of the Grand-Duchy are integrally incorporated, in time of peace as well as during war, with the army of the Northern Union. Of the many mysteries connected with the Prussian reconstruction of Germany, this exceptional position of the GrandDuchy of Hesse is perhaps the most mysterious. Why so arbitrary a line as that of the Main should have been selected for the demarcation between north and south; why, having been selected, it should, to the despair of the inhabitants of Hesse who dwell upon the two banks of this now celebrated stream, have been adhered to as if some great national or political principle were involved in it; why, having been departed from on the most important point, that of the military union between the Grand-Duchy and the North German Confederation, it should have been maintained in regard to the political division of the country; why something so monstrous should have been called into life as a State barely numbering a million of inhabitants, one half of which is indissolubly united with a confederacy which practically absorbs into itself the rights of external sovereignty of its several members, whilst the other half remains an independent international speck upon the map of Europe, are problems well fitted to exercise the ingenuity of the political student. We shall not attempt to solve them, but confine ourselves to recording the current popular solutions. The reconstructed Germany, therefore, from which Austria is excluded, consists of the North German Confederation, of three independent States-Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden, and of the Grand-Duchy of Hesse: geographically and politically, half in and half out of the North German Union; militarily, wholly in it. The whole edifice of reconstruction, say | remained, so far as the formation of a some, bears upon it the impress of external Southern Confederation is concerned, a dead influence. When Prussia drew the sword, letter. she nailed to her colours the national programme, viz., the Unification of non-Austrian Germany on the basis of a National Parliament. When she sheathed it, after successes which outdid the expectations of the most sanguine, she forced upon the German nation the programme of the French Cæsar territorial aggrandizement of Prussia in the north, union and independence of the States of the south. Whatever the nature of the engagements taken at Paris, of which the Emperor's letter was the official registration before Europe, the river Main must have figured in them, and have thus acquired its talismanic virtues. With her own people Prussia broke faith, with her Gallic neighbour she was true to her word. By means of the national apparatus of the "Customs" Parliament, these disjuncta membra constitute a legislative unit for cer tain specific purposes connected with the levying and distribution of customs' duties, and of certain excise taxes. By the action of the international appa ratus of the treaties of offence and defence, they consolidate themselves during war into a military unit under the supreme command of the Crown of Prussia. We must devote our remaining space to an examination of the North German Constitution. At the conference to which Prussia on the 18th of January 1867 submitted her draft of Constitution for the North German Confederation, twenty-two Sovereign States were represented, the collective population of which amounted in round numbers to thirty millions. Of these thirty millions, Prussia with her newly acquired provinces contri The idea underlying the arrangements of 1866, say others, was to create a provisional state of things, which should lead to a union of Germany by an easier process of transition than so radical a measure as immediate unification. The more arbitrary the provisional settlement, the greater the momentary discomfort, the more vigorous will be the efforts made to attain to a definite settlement, the quicker will be the process of voluntary adhesion to the North German Confederation, which is the object of Prussian policy. To the Hessians has been as-buted twenty-four, the remaining twenty-one signed the task of supplying the argument of the reductio ad absurdum. Like those dumb victims of science, whose sufferings, caused by an arbitrary interference with the laws of life, furnish physiologists with their most effective arguments for the vindication of those laws, they are called upon to exhibit the evils which flow from a wilful disregard of the vital principle of German consolidation. Others again maintain that these two solutions are not only not incompatible, but that they complement each other. For Prussia to fight her duel with Austria, and to obtain the antecedent conditions necessary for the national reconstruction of Germany, it was necessary to obtain the neutrality of the bystanders. This was done as regards France by the engagements in question; but the letter only, and not the spirit, of those engagements has been adhered to, and everything has been so arranged, that whilst the attitude of Prussia shall appear that of a religious observance of her engagements, it shall be the Southern States that sue for a change of programme. The provisions of the treaty of Prague, as we need hardly remind our readers, have States making up six millions. This dispro portion between the relative importance of the allied States gave rise to the bitter jest current in Germany, which describes the North German Confederation as a treaty of alliance between a dog and its fleas. That in such an Assembly the old Hungarian constitutional maxim "Vota ponderantur non numerantur," should have prevailed was natural, and thus in the protocol of the final conference we see recorded how one Plenipotentiary after another lifted up his voice, and said that although his Government entertained serious objections to one or the other feature of the Prussian scheme, still the Prussian declaration that the points objected to were essential rendered it incumbent upon him to waive those objections, and accept the scheme as proposed by Prussia. The scheme agreed to by the twenty-two allied Governments was submitted by them to a Parliament elected according to the provisions of the Frankfort Constitution of 1849,-i.e., universal suffrage, secret voting and a division of the entire population of the twenty-two States into equal electoral districts. The Assembly thus called into life fulfilled, |