GERMANY. 



369 



twenty-two out of two hundred and eighty- 

 nine votes. He also received the votes of all 

 parties except one, the Catholic, which cast 

 sixty votes for another Bavarian, the Baron 

 von Aretin. As second Vice-President, Dr. 

 Weber, of Stuttgart, memher of the Supreme 

 Court of Wurtemberg and President of the 

 Wurtemberg Diet, was elected through the 

 united efforts of the National Liberals and the 

 party of Progress, receiving one hundred and 

 fifty of two hundred and ninety-five votes ; 

 while the candidate of the Conservative par- 

 ties received seventy-eight, and the candi- 

 date of the Catholic party (A. Keichensperger) 

 sixty-four. 



The Reichstag began its labors with discuss- 

 ing and voting a reply to the imperial speech 

 as an address to the Emperor. The parties 

 generally wished to come, if possible, to an 

 understanding with regard to the address. A 

 so-called free commission, consisting of their 

 representatives, met, therefore, for a prelimi- 

 nary deliberation. The consent of all the 

 great parties, with the exception of one, was 

 finally obtained to one draft ; the only oppo- 

 nents were the Catholics, who took exception 

 to that paragraph which emphatically indorsed 

 the assurances given by the Emperor in regard 

 to the strict observance of a principle of non- 

 intervention. This paragraph ran as follows : 

 " Germany also at one time has conceived the 

 germ of decay by interfering with the life of 

 other nations, its rulers following traditions 

 of foreign origin. The new empire has sprung 

 from the peculiar spirit of the nation, which, 

 prepared solely for defence, is invariably de- 

 voted to works of peace. In its intercourse 

 with foreign nations, Germany demands for 

 its citizens no more than the respect which 

 right and custom warrant, and, unbiassed by 

 favor or disfavor, it allows every nation to find 

 the 1 road toward its national unity and every 

 state to find the best form of its own constitu- 

 tion. The days of interference with the inner 

 life of other nations, we hope, will return 

 under no pretext and in no form." As the 

 Catholic party believed this paragraph to con- 

 demn directly their hopes for an intervention 

 of Germany in behalf of a restoration of the 

 temporal power of the Pope, they refused their 

 consent to the draft, and proposed a counter- 

 address which passed over in silence the allu- 

 sion of the imperial speech to the principle of 

 non-intervention, and, moreover, contained a 

 paragraph expressing their hopes for the main- 

 tenance of old-established and justified partic- 

 ularities of the single German states by the 

 side of the national union. Thus two drafts 

 were laid before the House, and, on March 

 30th, the debate on them began. It was long 

 and animated, and, as regards the speeches 

 delivered on both sides of the House, the most 

 brilliant of the session. On the part of the 

 Catholics, Bishop Ketteler, of Mentz, A. Reich- 

 ensperger, and Dr. Windhorst, were the promi- 

 nent speakers; on the part of the majority, 

 VOL. XL 24 A 



Herr von Bennigsen, the mover of the address, 

 Miquel, and Volk. The vote on the adoption 

 of the address resulted in 243 yeas to 63 nays, 

 the minority embracing, besides the Catholic 

 party, a few Particularists, from Hanover and 

 Northern Schleswig, and Socialists. The Poles, 

 as usual, abstained from voting. 



After the adoption of the address, the revi- 

 sion of the imperial Constitution was next in 

 order. On all sides it appeared desirable to 

 leave for the present the recent treaties be- 

 tween the North-German Confederation and 

 the South-German States unaltered. Even the 

 party of Progress suspended its desire for the 

 recognition of the "fundamental rights" 

 (Grundrechte) of the German people which, 

 in 1848, had been adopted by the Parliament 

 of Frankfort. The Poles again demanded the 

 separation of the Polish districts from the Ger- 

 man Empire, but received on that account a se- 

 vere reprimand from Bismarck, who told them : 

 " You, gentlemen, are really no people ; you 

 represent no people ; you have no people back- 

 ing you ; you are backed by nothing but your 

 fictions and illusions, one of which is that you 

 were elected by the Polish people into the 

 Reichstag in order to represent the Polish na- 

 tionality. You have been elected to represent 

 the interests of the Catholic Church, and, if 

 you do this whenever the interests of the Cath- 

 olic Church are at stake, you meet the ex- 

 pectations of your electors. But a mandate to 

 represent the Polish people or the Polish na- 

 tionality has been given you by no man, and 

 least of all by the people of Posen and West- 

 ern Prussia. I do not share your fiction 

 that the Polish rule was good or not bad. I 

 wish to be impartial and just, but I can assure 

 you it was truly bad, and therefore it will 

 never return." The only sympathy with the 

 Poles for these harsh remarks was expressed 

 by one Catholic and one Socialist deputy. An 

 important discussion relating to the revision 

 of the Constitution was again brought on by 

 the Catholic party, which offered an amend- 

 ment to the Constitution containing a number 

 of provisions on the press, the right of asso- 

 ciation, and the independence of the state. A 

 brilliant speech in support of the amendment 

 was made by P. Reichensperger ; an equally 

 brilliant reply was made by Heinrich von 

 Treitschke, the great German historian. The 

 final vote showed 223 against and only 59 for 

 the amendment all the parties being again 

 united against the Catholics. 



As the treaties regulating the entrance of 

 Bavaria into the new empire reserved the 

 introduction of the laws of the North-German 

 Confederation for a special act of imperial 

 legislation, the Bavarian Government caused a 

 law to be submitted to the Reichsrath by 

 which twenty-four of the Federal laws were 

 introduced into Bavaria, either immediately or 

 after a very short interval. In general, the 

 representatives of Bavaria, as well as of Wur- 

 temberg, in the Federal Council, showed a 



