UNIV. OF HISTORY OF EUROPE. CHAPTER XXVII. CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF GERMANY, FROM THE TERMINA- CHAP. XXVII. 1814. 1. cessary to after the ef So great had been the efforts, so decisive the success of the German nations in the last years of the war with Napoleon, that a long period of tranquillity and repose had been in a manner forced upon them. It was physic- Peace neally impossible that the herculean efforts of 1813, 1814, Germany and 1815, when the whole male inhabitants capable of forts of the bearing arms had, either in the regular armies, the land- war. wehr, or the landsturm, been found in the ranks of war, could much longer continue; and the spirit which had animated them was not, like that of the French or Scythians, the mere passion for conquest, which grows with every gratification it receives, but the sober determination of a peaceful race to defend their temples, their hearths, their families. War is the natural passion of the Gauls, the Poles, the Russians, but it is far from being so either with the Germans or the English. The two latter nations are essentially inhabitative; their ruling passion is comfort, their prevailing desires are centred in home. Even when the passion for emigration seizes them, as it did so strongly in the days of the Romans, and is doing again in VOL. V. A XXVII. 1814. CHAP. these times, it is by the influence of the same desires that their conduct, apparently contradictory, is influenced. They leave their own country, not because they are indifferent to the comforts of home, but because they desire them; they seek in foreign lands or Transatlantic climes that secure resting-place which they can no longer find in their own. "When the Roman conquers," says Pliny, 2. Extreme man demands on 66 he inhabits ;" and that is the characteristic of the Teutonic race in every part of the world. They fight desperately in defence of their homes, and are often impelled in stupendous multitudes to gain settlements abroad; but it is to gain or secure such settlements that their efforts in both cases are made. They do not aspire, like the Arabs, the Tartars, or the Scythians, to sweep over the world with the fierce tempest of savage conquest; hence all the great and lasting transpositions of mankind have been made by the Teutonic race. Their descendants are to be found in France, Italy, Spain, and the British Isles; and of half a million of Europeans who now annually settle on the shores of America, at least ninetenths have, directly or indirectly, come from the woods of Germany.* From this peculiarity in the German character it was that, after the transcendant and decisive successes which moderation attended the close of the war, the whole empire so immediately relapsed into pacific habits and pursuits. Modethe peace. ration, unparalleled after so many triumphs, regulated their demands in the hour of victory. They neither imitated the example of Louis XIV., who in many successful campaigns bespoiled them of their territories on the left bank of the Rhine; nor of the Russians, who have never made peace for a century and a half without an accession * EMIGRANTS TO AMERICA FROM GERMANY AND THE BRITISH ISLES, FROM 1852 To 1854. —Results of Census, p. 56; and Emigration Report, July 16, 1855. XXVII. 1814. of territory; nor of Napoleon, who, by the treaty of Tilsit, CHAP. robbed Prussia of half its dominions after a single campaign. Scarcely a village was taken from France after the double capture of its capital by the arms of the German nations. "France as in 1789" was the basis of the treaties of Paris alike in 1814 and 1815. To this singular moderation in the hour of victory, the solid foundation and long continuance of the peace concluded within the French capital is mainly to be ascribed. Had provinces been reft from old France after the battles of Leipsic and Waterloo, as they had been from Prussia and Austria after those of Jena and Wagram, the same heartburnings and animosities would have been excited, national jealousies would have been perpetuated, and five-and-thirty years of subsequent peace would not have blessed the inhabitants and developed the resources of the Fatherland. 3. German in on the dis Much of this long-continued and felicitous pacification is to be ascribed to the strong and wise organisation of Dangers to the German Confederation, which took place at and after dependence the Congress of Vienna. The weakness of the old Empire solution of had been sufficiently proved by the wars of the Revolu- the Empire. tion; the crown of the Kaisars had crumbled at the stroke of Napoleon's sword. A separate empire had been created and acknowledged in Austria; separate kingdoms in Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony; duchies and electorates in the lesser states; but the ancient and venerable bond of the Empire, coeval with the days of Charlemagne, had been dissolved. The danger was great that out of this circumstance a fresh peril, of a more serious and lasting kind than any which had been escaped by the war of liberation, might be incurred. Placed midway between France and Russia, each of which was under a single head, and actuated by the strongest spirit of conquest, there was the greatest risk that Germany, broken into separate principalities, and actuated by separate interests, might be unable to resist either taken singly, and beyond all question would be crushed by the two acting in con XXVII. 1815. CHAP. cert. The fate of Poland, with its democratic passions and discordant government, might yet await the centre of European civilisation, and out of the very triumphs of the arms of freedom might arise more serious peril to the cause of European independence than any it had yet incurred. Impressed with these dangers, it was the first care of Sage consti- the wise statesmen to whom, on the conclusion of the war, immense the interests of Europe were committed, to frame a fedethe German ral constitution for all the States of German origin, 4. tution and strength of Confeder acy. June 8, 1815. which should secure them against the danger of foreign attack, and the risk of internal discord. By the Act of Confederacy, which was signed at Vienna on June 8th, 1815, it was provided, by the consent of all parties concerned-including the Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia, the King of Denmark for Holstein, and the King of the Netherlands for the grand-duchy of Luxembourg that the affairs of the Confederacy should be managed by a general Assembly or Diet, in which all the members were to be represented by their plenipotentiaries, either singly possessing a vote, or concurring with others to form one. The presidency was given to Austria; the whole number of votes was seventeen, arranged after such a manner as gave a preponderating influence to the great military powers; and Frankfort-on-the-Maine was fixed on as the place of meeting, probably to impress the Confederation at all times with the peril of French invasion, the great danger which was then apprehended.* Each member * The votes in the Diet were as follows: Votes. Netherlands, for Luxembourg, Brunswick and Nassau, Mecklenburg Schwerin & Strelitz, 1 Hohenzollern, Lichtenstein, &c., Holstein, Oldenburg, &c., Lübeck, Frankfort, Bremen, Hamburg, 1 17 But if matters came to a deliberation and vote "in matters relating to the Act of XXVII. 1815. of the Confederacy bound himself to assist in defending not CHAP. only all Germany, but every separate state of the League, against any attack, and reciprocally to guarantee to each other the whole of their possessions included within the Confederation. They also bound themselves to enter into no treaties hostile to the Confederacy; not to make war upon one another under any pretext, and to submit all differences that might arise between them to the decision of the Diet. It was further agreed that in all the States of the Confederacy a constitutional Assembly or StatesGeneral shall be established;* and that diversity of Christian faith shall occasion no difference in respect of civil or political rights. The Diet was to take into its consideration how the condition of the professors of the Jewish religion might be ameliorated. It was provided that the subjects of each state might inherit or acquire landed property in any other state, without being subject to heavier burdens than the natives in them; that free emigration was to be permitted from any one state to any other which might terest," then the Diet was to form itself into a general assembly, and its members shall have votes according to the following scale, viz.:— * "Il y aura des Assemblées des Etats dans tous les pays de la Confédération." .”—Loi Fondamentale, Art. 13; Archives Diplomatiques, iv. 17. |