184 GERMANY, 



On a superficial glance, this system appears faultless ; for the votes 

 are distributed in ratio to the population of the several states composing 

 it: but on a nearer inspection, we discover in its workings the overweening 

 preponderance of powers .which are not German in point of interest, and 

 only partially so in point of territory. In fact, it is but a clumsy and 

 expensive machine to govern all Germany " au bon plaisir" of foreign 

 states. One third of the votes, it will be remarked, belong to Austria, 

 Prussia, England, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The smaller states, 

 who constitute the majority, with their half, quarter, and even one-fifth 

 part of a vote, are but mere cyphers. The whole and sole controul of 

 the diet resides in the hands of Austria and Prussia, or, we should 

 rather say, of Russia, since the Prussian monarchy cowers beneath the 

 political ascendancy of this northern power. But we have yet to trace 

 the most odious features of this system, which controuls the political 

 independence, and even the free administration of the internal affairs of 

 every state. No sovereign prince can give free institutions to his sub- 

 jects, unless he has previously obtained the consent of these powers 

 through the medium of the diet. Even in those states where represen- 

 tative governments exist, the confederation deprives them of all power 

 in the most important of all relations, that of declaring war or making 

 peace. And it expressly enacts, that no constitution shall be allowed to 

 impede any member of the confederation in the duties which the diet 

 may think proper to impose upon him. Thus Saxe Weimar, whose 

 liberal institutions and free press gave such umbrage to Austria and 

 Prussia, was finally obliged to submit to a censorship; and a similar 

 restraint has just been imposed on the press in the Grand Duchy of 

 Baden. 



Under a system like this, it is utterly impossible that liberal insti- 

 tutions can flourish on the soil of Germany. But its operation upon the 

 social condition of the people is still more fatal. The congress of Carls- 

 bad, convened for the express purpose of arranging the internal affairs of 

 Germany, deserved, in one respect, the gratitude of the whole country, 

 by proclaiming the most unrestricted freedom of commerce. For some 

 time their intentions were acted upon in a spirit of great liberality, till 

 Prussia violated them, by imposing a system of heavy tolls along her 

 Rhenish possessions. Now as every duke, margrave or count was too 

 proud to yield to His Konigliche Majestat of Prussia, they used 

 reprisals, and a war of tolls began. The effects of such a system on 

 countries of limited resources, and deprived of sea-coast taxed a I'ou- 

 trance to keep up a standing army, and support the glittering attira.il 

 of a court, may be easily imagined. In the states of the nest of petty 

 princes, who are crowded between the Thuringian forest and the foot of 

 the Erzegeberge, the tourist, during a morning ride, will have half a 

 dozen tolls to pay ; while a bottle of Rhudesheimer, not thirty miles from 

 the place of its growth, will cost him more than at the Clarendon, or the 

 Caffe de Paris. Thus it is that the industry of the country is borne to 

 the earth. It is more particularly on the agriculturist that the burthens 

 press so heavily; and hundreds of this class are selling their properties, 

 and emigrating to America, to seek in the inhospitable regions of the 

 west, that liberty of opinion, and that fruit of industry denied to them in 

 their own romantic but feudalized land. 



Why these petty princes have been allowed to retain their indepen- 

 dence, when so many others have been mediatised, we have already 



