The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ a separation of church and state—a consummation which it was in the power of leading theologians, to procure—they preferred a still closer union. Nor is it to be wondered at that, ever since, men of the most earnest piety have made a defence of the royal prerogatives a part of their religion, and that some have gone even so far as to deny that in Prussia a Christian can be anything but a Conservative. It cannot but serve to soften many prejudices against this party to know that men like the venerable Professor Tholuck, of Halle, are decided supporters of the Government, and regard the triumph of the Liberal party as almost equivalent to the downfall of the church. And it may serve in part to excuse the persistence of the Government in its course to know that it is advised so to persist by men who should be supposed to have the highest good of the country at heart.

      But, on the other hand, as we have remarked, the seeds of the present Liberal party were sown during this same period of national disaster, and that, too, by the royal hand. The regeneration of Prussia is attributed by all to the indefatigable efforts of the minister, Baron von Stein, and, after he was deposed by command of Napoleon, of his successor, Count Hardenberg. Their work, however, consisted not only in abolishing villanage, the usufruct of royal lands, serfdom, the exemption of the nobility from taxation, and the oppressive monopoly of the guilds; in giving to all classes the right of holding landed possessions and high offices; in the reconstruction of the courts; in the enfranchisement of the cities; in the promotion of general education; in relieving military service of many abuses and severities;—this was not all: the king was moved to issue, October 27, 1810, an edict, in which he distinctly promised to give the people a constitution and a national parliamentary representation. A year later this promise was renewed. 'Our intention,' says the king, 'still is, as we promised in the edict of October 27, 1810, to give the nation a judiciously constituted representation.' That this promise was not immediately fulfilled is, considering the condition of the country, not specially surprising. Whatever may then have been the king's personal inclinations, there is perhaps no reason to doubt that he intended to introduce the constitution as soon as the return of peace should give him the requisite means of devoting to the subject his undivided attention. That the promise was originally drawn from him by the urgent influence of his counsellors, especially Von Stein and Hardenberg, there is every reason to believe. That he should have been inclined, unsolicited, to limit his own power, is more than can ordinarily be expected of monarchs. The bad love power because it gratifies their selfish lusts; the good, who really wish the weal of their subjects, can easily persuade themselves that the more freely they can use their power, the better it will be for all concerned. But, for whatever reasons, the pledge was given; yet, though Frederick William reigned thirty years after giving it, he never fulfilled the pledge. It may be that, had he done so, the party divisions which now agitate the land would not have been avoided. Conservatives might have complained that he had yielded too much to the unreasonable demands of an unenlightened populace; Liberals might have complained that he had not yielded enough; at all events, the opposing principles, of the divine right of kings, and of popular self-government, whatever form they might have taken, would have divided public sentiment. This may have been; but even more certain is it that the failure on the part of the monarch to carry out a promise solemnly and repeatedly made, a promise which he never would have made unless believing that it would gratify his people, could not but lead ultimately to a deep disaffection on the part of the people. His course resembled too much the equivocating prophecies of the witches in Macbeth; he kept the word of promise to the ear, and broke it to the hope. It is then not strange that many should have found their faith in royalty weakened, and come to the conclusion that whatever was to be gained in the point of popular government must be secured by insisting on it as a right which the Government nolens volens should be required to concede.

      Such, in general terms, is the animus of the two political parties of Prussia. Turning to a more particular consideration of the historical progress of events, we find that the first movement toward a freer development of popular character was made by Frederick the Great. Throughout his life he was inclined, theoretically, to favor a republican form of government; and, although he was no friend of sudden changes, and did not think that the time had come for a radical change in Prussia, he yet recognized the truth that a king's duty is to act as the servant of the state; and, in spite of the sternness with which, in many relations, he exercised his power, he introduced some changes which may be regarded as the earnests of a permanent establishment of a constitutional government. These changes consisted specially in the increase of freedom which he allowed respecting the press, religion, and the administration of justice. But, as we have seen, nothing like a real limitation of the royal power was undertaken until the War of Liberation seemed to make it a national necessity. The changes which Frederick William's ministers made in the social and political condition of the people were in themselves of vast and permanent importance. They were made under the stimulus of a more or less clear recognition of the truth of natural, inalienable rights. Fighting against a people whose frightful aggressions were the product of this principle abnormally developed, they yet had to borrow their own weapons from the same armory. Or, if the republican principle was not at all approved, the course of the Government showed that it was so far believed in by the people that certain concessions to it were necessary as a matter of policy. But these changes were yet by no means equivalent to the introduction of republican elements in the Government. An approach was made toward the granting of equality of rights; but this was only granted; the Government was still absolute; strictly speaking, it had the right, so far as formal obligations were concerned, to remove the very privileges which it had given. But the promise of something more was given also. Besides the already-mentioned renewal of that promise, the king, June 3, 1814, in an order issued while he was in Paris, intimated his intention to come to a final conclusion respecting the particular form of the constitution after his return to Berlin. In May, 1815, he issued another edict, the substance of which was that provision should be made for a parliamentary representation of the people; that, to this end, the so-called estates of the provinces should be reorganized, and from them representatives should be chosen, who should have the right to deliberate respecting all subjects of legislation which concern the persons and property of citizens; and that a commission should be at once appointed, to meet in Berlin on the first of September, whose business should be to frame a constitution. But this commission was not then appointed, and of course did not meet on the first of September. Two years later the commissioners were named; but their work has never been heard of.

      Here is to be discerned a manifest wavering in the mind of the king respecting the fulfilment of his intentions. The German States, taught by the bitter experience of the late war the disadvantages of their dismembered condition, and bound together more closely than ever before by the recollection of their common sufferings and common triumphs, saw the necessity of a real union, to take the place of the merely nominal one which had thus far existed in the shadowy hegemony of the house of Hapsburg. The German Confederation, essentially as it still exists, was organized at Vienna by the rulers of the several German States and representatives from the free cities, June 8, 1815. Although there was in this assembly no direct representation of the people, it is clear that its deliberations were in great part determined by the unmistakable utterances of the popular mind. For one of the first measures adopted was to provide that in all the States of the Confederacy constitutional governments should be guaranteed. Frederick William himself was one of the most urgent supporters of this provision. It is therefore not calculated to elevate our estimation of the openness, honesty, and simplicity for which this king is praised, and to which his general course seems to entitle him, that as late as March, 1818, in reply to a petition from the city of Coblenz, that he would grant the promised constitution, he remarked that 'neither the order of May 22, 1815, nor article xiii. of the acts of the Confederacy had fixed the time of the grant, and that the determination of this time must be left to the free choice of the sovereign, in whom unconditional confidence ought to be placed.' We are to account for this hesitation, however, not by supposing that he originally intended to delay the measure in question so long as he actually did delay it, but by the fears with which he was inspired by the popular demonstrations in the times following the close of the war. The fact was palpable, not only that the idea of popular rights, notwithstanding the miserable failure of the French Revolution, had become everywhere current, but that, together with this feeling, a desire for German unity was weakening the hold of the several princes on СКАЧАТЬ