Our Empire 297
Our Imperial Constitution is at once old and young ;
it has revivified the ancient and unforgotten politi-
cal traditions of our race in so far as these were
adapted to the tendencies and needs of our day.
Our Imperial Constitution is at once old and young ;
it has revivified the ancient and unforgotten politi-
cal traditions of our race in so far as these were
adapted to the tendencies and needs of our day.
Treitschke - 1915 - Germany, France, Russia, and Islam
net/2027/loc.
ark:/13960/t14m9qp6g Public Domain in the United States / http://www.
hathitrust.
org/access_use#pd-us
? Germany's Protestant Freedom 283
influence of the Swedish veterans who took ser-
vice under the Red Eagle, many Swedish mihtary
practices were introduced into the young army,
such as a ready mobiHty of the troops, increased
rapidity of fire for the infantry, and the use of
Gustavus Adolphus* war-cry, "Gott mit uns! "
Yet so ambiguous are all historical tendencies, that
it was Frederick William who first began the de-
struction of the political work of his uncle. The
Swedes exacted the payment of a terrible price
for their help. They established themselves as
masters along all our coasts, and, as Frederick
WilHam complained, the Weser, the Elbe, and the
Oder were all in foreign hands. For nearly two
hundred years Prussia had to struggle, now with
the sword and now with the pen, against the
Swedish dominion, from the time of the first
Northern War and the victory of Fehrbellin,
in 1675, until at length, in the year 1815, the last
traces of Swedish control passed away and North
Germany once more became master in its own
household.
Of the three colossi whose names then filled the
world with alarm, the figure of Wallenstein appears
the gloomiest. He was, unquestionably, a great
warrior, yet a homeless man, always willing to
sacrifice his nationality and his faith on the shrine
of his ambition. He was an adventurer of genius,
hoping now for an Italian and now for a German
princely coronet ; now dreaming of a world dominion
for the House of Hapsburg, now of a Holy War
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? 284 Germany's Protestant Freedom
against the Turks, and now of a new sack of
Rome ; and yet amid all these gigantic plans think-
ing always and only of his own great ego. "God
in heaven; I, myself, on earth, " such was his blas-
phemous motto, and he died the dreadful death of
the betrayer. A more auspicious figure is that of
Richelieu, for this French Bismarck was firmly
planted upon that soil of nationality wherein is
rooted all political greatness. He brought to
completion all that which the policy of the French
kings had been carefully preparing for centuries,
the unity of his Fatherland. But alike in nobiHty
of soul and in human greatness Gustavus Adolphus
excels both the others. His fate resembled that of
Alexander of Macedon, for the two men were
alike in the rapidity of their victory and in their
sudden and premature deaths. Alexander's world-
dominion broke up upon the death of its founder,
but for hundreds of years what he had done for
the civilization of humanity remained. He com-
pelled the Greeks to replace Greek nationalism by
the citizenship of the world; he transformed the
material rule of Greece into the dominion of the
Greek spirit; he disseminated Greek culture
throughout Asia Minor, and thus it became possi-
ble for the message of the Christian gospels to be
conveyed in the Greek tongue to all the Mediter-
ranean peoples. In like manner vanished the
greater Scandinavian Empire of Gustavus Adol-
phus. Neither of the two artificially constructed
Great Powers of the seventeenth century, the sea-
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? Germany's Protestant Freedom 285
power of Holland and the land-power of Sweden,
could persist, for their foundations were too slender;
the one was overthrown by England, and the other
by Prussian Germany, which were better in a
position to maintain themselves as Great Powers,
being endowed with stronger natural forces. But
that which has persisted, that which, God willing,
shall persist for all time, is the free Protestant
Word, which Gustavus Adolphus preserved for the
heart of Europe; that which has persisted is the
living mutual tolerance of the German creeds.
Upon these things has been established our new
united Empire, unified politically though composite
ecclesiastically; upon these things has been estab-
lished our entire modern civilization; upon these
rests that fine humanity which enables the Ger-
mans, Protestants and Catholics alike, to enjoy a
thought which is at once free and pious.
It is for these reasons that to-day with full heart
we express our thankfulness to our Swedish kins-
men and neighbours, to those who first received at
our hands the blessings of the Reformation, and sub-
sequently sent us as saviour the Lion of the North-
land. Nowhere is this gratitude more manifest
than in this youthful colony of Old Germany,
which a wonderful destiny has raised to the premier
position in the new Empire. For three hundred
years only did these countries of the March belong
to the Romish Church, and for more than three and
a half centuries now have they enjoyed Protestant
freedom. Here we live and work in the free air of
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? 286 Germany's Protestant Freedom
Protestantism. Not with a view to the re-opening
of old wounds, but simply in order to give honour
where honour is due, has Protestant Germany-
grounded upon the name of the Swedish King that
noble institution which brings help and consolation
to our oppressed Protestant brethren throughout
the world. Gustavus Adolphus does not belong
to a single nation, but to the whole of Protestant
Christendom.
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? OUR EMPIRE
{Berlin, 1886. )
[Prefatory Note by Translator. -- In the essay which follows,
Treitschke employs the terms monarchy and monarchical, some-
times in the sense usual in England, sometimes rather to signify
autocracy and autocratic. I have thought it preferable to retain the
former terms throughout, as the context will always make the
meaning evident, once the reader's attention has been drawn to
the possible ambiguity. ]
TWENTY-TWO years ago, when I wrote my es-
say upon ' * The Federal State and the Central-
ized State" (Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat) , I had
an obscure premonition that a great hour was
approaching for our Fatherland, and that the
good sword of Prussia would cut the Gordian knot
of the old federal policy. Since then, by a wonder-
ful dispensation of Providence, the boldest dreams
that I ventured in the above-mentioned essay have
been realized to a degree exceeding my utmost
expectations, and the rich history of our re-estab-
lished Empire has rendered necessary a critical
revision of the theory of confederations and other
unions of states. As long ago as 1874 I myself
attempted a scientific appreciation of our recently
acquired political experiences, and in the present
essay I give no more than a summary of what
287
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? 288 Our Empire
I then expounded in detail in my treatise on
"Federation and Empire" {Bund und Reich).
The theory of G. Waitz, which assumes in the
federal state a division of sovereignty between the
central administration and the separate states of
the federation, is not merely inapplicable to Ger-
man conditions, but is in open contradiction with
the very nature of the vState, and also with the
constitution of the Swiss Confederation and with
that of the American Union. For the very reason
that the chief administration is the chief, a division
of its sovereignty is inconceivable, and the sole
scientifically possible distinction between the con-
federation of states and the federal state is to be
found in this, that in the confederation of states
sovereignty attaches to the members of the
confederation, to the individual states, whereas
in the federal state it attaches to the centralized
unity. The confederation of states is a union
of sovereign states based upon international law;
the individual elements of the confederation are
not the citizens of the respective states of the
confederation, but the national governments of
these, and the said governments are competent,
in accordance with international law, to declare
the confederation dissolved in the event of any
breach in its constitution. The federal state is an
image of state-right, and is for this reason, like any
other state, legally eternal and indissoluble. Its ad-
ministration has the unrestricted power possessed
by that of any sovereign state. It passes laws
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? Our Empire 289
which override the individual-state laws, and which
must be obeyed by the individual states and by the
citizens of these ; in the carrying of its decisions into
effect it employs, as the circumstances may dictate,
now its own immediate officials, now the individual
states, and sometimes both together, but always
retains the powers of supervision and control;
finally, in it is vested the determination of the
prerogatives of the individual states, for the central
government of the federal state always possesses
the faculty of enlarging its own powers by a
revision of the constitution. Directly a confedera-
tion of states becomes transformed into a federal
state, the sovereignty of the individual states
disappears, for the individual states become subject
to the authority of the newly formed federal state,
and are liable to be punished by this last for dis-
obedience or high treason -- as was proved alike
theoretically and practically by the Civil War in
the United States of America. The federal state
is more closely akin than is the confederation of
states to the fully unified state, the sole difference
being that in the case of the federal state the deci-
sions of the central government come into effect
only through the co-operation of the individual
states, and that the prerogatives still retained by
these have not been formally handed over to the
central power. For this reason the transition from
a confederation of states to a federal state is a
process which always involves severe struggles and
often actual war, for the individual states of a
19
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? 290 Our Empire
confederation will not readily abandon their
sovereign powers.
This federal state constitution such as is pos-
sessed by Switzerland and the United States has
certain characteristics which belong also to the
constitution of the German Empire. Our Empire,
too, possesses a supreme centralized administra-
tion, whose decisions are effected in co-operation
with the individual states, decisions, obedience to
which is exacted alike from these states and from
their citizens. With us, also, the principle holds
good that national law overrides state law. Like
the states of the American Union and like the Swiss
Cantons, the individual German states have lost
their sovereignty, and from the strictly scientific
standpoint can no longer be regarded as states, for
they lack the two rights upon which, so long as
there has been any theory of government, the idea
of sovereignty has been grounded -- the right to
take up arms, and the power to determine the ex-
tent of their own prerogatives. They do not pos-
sess personal or individual freedom of action under
international law ; in the society of states they can-
not exhibit the powers of an independent will,
and they are subordinated to the Empire which
protects them with the might of its arms ; they are
incompetent to enlarge the sphere of their own
prerogatives in accordance with their own desires,
for they must rest content with the prerogatives
allotted to them by the central government, which
always retains the power of further restriction.
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? Our Empire 291
It is true that the language of the Constitution as
well as the language of common life speaks of the
States of the German Confederation; but the
Constitution, more especially in respect of these
complicated federal relationships, is always guided
by historical considerations, or by considerations of
political expediency, and is thereby often involved
in error from the strictly scientific outlook. The
states of the Republic of the United Netherlands
were for two hundred years officially styled
"Provinces," although they were unquestionably
sovereign states. In Switzerland, the sovereign
members of the Confederation were from 18 14
onw^ards given the modest name of Canton, and
this name was preserved after the radical alteration
of the constitution in the year 1848; whereas the
individual members of the North American Union
retain in the federal state the title of State under
which they entered the original confederation.
It might seem desirable, for the sake of peace,
to avoid the open proclamation of this truth,
which is disagreeab e to the advocates of sepa-
ratism; but science must not lie, must not out
of respect to the vanity of the German princes
abandon those fundamentals of political theory
which have been acquired by the difficult labour
of hundreds of years -- must pay no attention to the
foolish dicta of not a few professors, to the effect
that to-day there exist "non-sovereign" as well as
"sovereign states. " Since it is certain that any
community becomes a state from the moment that
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? 292 Our Empire
it attains to sovereignty, and since it is certain that
a state becomes transformed into a province
directly it is forced to recognize the sovereignty of a
conqueror, it necessarily follows that in sovereignty
is to be found the essential characteristic of the
state, the characteristic by which the state is dis-
tinguished from all other human communities. A
*' state of states, " a state that rules over states, is
theoretically an absurdity, and in practice it is
unending anarchy. Such a state of states was
the monstrum politicum of Pufendorf, the Holy
Roman Empire in its closing centuries. When we
find Ludolf Hugo, Putter, and other imperial
publicists, endeavouring to find consolation for
the miseries of Germany in the insane notions
of the Over-State and the Under-State, we may
ascribe this to the urgency of patriotic need; but
we must not apply to the active and vigorous
national structures of our own day these oppor-
tunist phrases born out of the processes of decom-
position of a community on the way to destruction.
The communities subordinated to the authority
of a modern federal state are themselves no longer
states, and this statement applies to the individual
communities which make up the German Empire.
Such superficial comparisons, however, hardly
touch the kernel of the matter. No reflective
statesman can deny that our Empire is a quite
pecuHar structure, sharply distinguished in its
history, in its position in the world, and in its
aims, from the federal states of America and
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? Our Empire 293
Switzerland. The high-sounding phrase, ' ' Empire
is a concept utterly foreign to the domain of
Public Law," does not render non-existent this
incontrovertible fact. The Empire exists and will
continue to flourish long after the present doctrines
of imperial law have been forgotten. It does not
become theory to endeavour to fit the great new
formations of history to the Procrustean bed of
ready-made concepts. Theory remains true only
when it continues to learn from life, and when its
concepts are subject to continuous transformation
in accordance with the teachings of experience.
Law is ever subject to the danger of becoming
enmeshed in its own formalisms; the doctrine of
public law becomes utterly futile if it attempts
to throw a dam athwart the main stream of history,
if it shirks the labour of studying, in addition to the
frame-work of existing laws, those laws also which
are decaying and those which are springing to life,
if it refuses to pay due attention to those political
relationships which are undergoing incorporation in
constitutional forms.
Anyone properly equipped with the historical
sense, who approaches the study of German im-
perial law, cannot fail to recognize two important
distinctions which forbid any comparison with
the federal states of America and Switzerland.
The constitution of these two federal states rests
upon the equality of all the members of the federal
union, but our imperial constitution rests upon
inequality, upon the preponderant power of
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? 294 Our Empire
Prussia. To the crown of this leading State is
attached a hereditary right to the imperial throne;
and there is attached also a monarchical dominion
which, though still incomplete in form, grows
stronger daily under our very eyes, and which
represents the ideas of national unity far more
effectively than the central authority of a federal
state can ever represent them. In the great days
of its history, Germany was a national monarchy.
As this monarchical feudal dominion fell to pieces
and the power of its kingship passed into the hands
of the estates of the Empire, a new monarchical
Power, that of the Crown of Prussia, gradually
became established upon the site of these territorial
states. It was Prussia which created our new Em-
pire, which liberated us from Austria, and which,
by the annexations of the year 1866, enlarged
the area of its own direct rule, and thus became
empowered to direct the fate of the whole of Ger-
many. By right of sword, by the might of estab-
lished fact, Prussia was enabled to impose upon
the sovereign states of the North the compacts
which led to the formation of the North German
Federation; and this new national state was sub-
sequently joined by the states of South Germany,
for these recognized that the maintenance of their
independent sovereignty had become impossible,
and they were no longer able to resist the national
impulse towards unity, which had now at length
found full expression. The Prussian army and
navy, the Prussian postal and telegraphic services,
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? Our Empire '295
the Prussian customs, and the Prussian banking
system, underwent expansion to become general
German institutions. Without any sacrifice,
Prussia was able to make to the Empire a free gift
of her navy and her postal service, and to arrange
for much of the imperial business to be conducted
by her own officials; for in truth the Prussian
State had conducted three victorious campaigns,
not in order immediately thereafter to subject
herself to a newly created imperial authority, but
in order to maintain and enlarge her own dominion,
to take into her own hands the imperial hegemony,
with the co-operation of the smaller allied states.
The result is that Prussia, however carefully
the wording of the Constitution may conceal the
fact, occupies in reality and in law a position alto-
gether different from that occupied by the other
countries of the Empire. The Prussian State
alone has remained a true state. Prussia alone
cannot be constrained by executive decree to the
fulfilment of her imperial duties, for in the hands
of the Emperor rests the enforcement of such a
decree -- and the Emperor is King of Prussia. The
entire imperial policy reposes upon the tacit
assumption that there cannot possibly exist a
permanent conflict between the will of the Empire
and the will of the Prussian State. In matters of
subordinate importance, the dominant state may
display a yielding disposition; it does, indeed,
exhibit such a disposition to a high degree, and this
even in cases where the Prussian view is unques-
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? 296 Our Empire
tionably the right one -- witness, for example, the
absurd imperial law in accordance with which
the seat of the imperial court of law is placed else-
where than in the capital city of the Empire. But
in all matters of decisive importance Prussia has
the determining voice, and the good sense of the
nation has long recognized that this new order of
things corresponds to the distribution of power
and is in accordance with the dictates of simple
justice. Of all the countries of the Empire, Prussia
alone retains the right of taking up arms, for the
King of Prussia is also, as Emperor, the War-Lord
of the Empire. The Prussian State alone cannot
be deprived against its will of the prerogatives with
which it is endowed by the Imperial Constitution,
for Prussia possesses seventeen votes in the Federal
Council, and these suffice to safeguard it in this
respect. Thus from the historical point of view
the German Empire is the Prussian-German
Unified State, with the accessory countries as-
sociated with Prussia as federal companions.
The necessary and valuable hegemony of the
Prussian State is, however, exercised under forms
which carefully safeguard the legitimate self-
respect of our princes and peoples. It is by the
nature of things, even more than in virtue of
the deliberate intentions of statesmen, that the
German State has been re-conducted into the
channels of the old imperial law. All that was
just and wise in the institutions of the Holy
Empire is revived under our own eyes in new forms.
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?
Our Empire 297
Our Imperial Constitution is at once old and young ;
it has revivified the ancient and unforgotten politi-
cal traditions of our race in so far as these were
adapted to the tendencies and needs of our day.
It is for this reason that within so short a time the
people has given its full confidence to the new order.
Those only who have grasped the interconnection
between the old elements and the new will under-
stand the political character of the new Empire,
which presents as united an aspect among the
community of modern states as was ever presented
by the Empire of old.
Now, as of old, the great names, Emperor and
Empire, exercise their charm upon the German
spirit, and this above all in those Franconian and
Suabian regions which were so long altogether
hostile to the Prussian State, and which only
through their firmly established sense of imperial
loyalty have been enabled to regain an understand-
ing of the creative energies of this new epoch
in our history. The honour thus paid to the
imperial name is no empty sport of the popular
imagination. On the ever-memorable day of
Versailles, King William expressly stated that it
was his determination to re-establish the imperial
dignity which had been in abeyance for sixty years,
to resume the crown of Charlemagne and the
old single-headed eagle. The imperial dignity of
the Hohenzollern is the most ancient and most
venerable in all the world. In the course of
centuries many changes have occurred in the
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? 298 Our Empire
boundaries of Germany ; within quite recent times
considerable losses were suffered in the South-East,
whilst compensatory expansion occurred in Alsace-
Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, Old Prussia, and
Posen. Nevertheless, in the political sense, though
not in the strictly legal sense, this New Empire is
the successor of the Old; herein has the National
State of the Germans found its new expression.
Anything is possible to the German doctrinaire.
In the days when the imperial authority had be-
come a mere shadow, and when Frederick the Great,
with clear insight, described the fallen Empire as
the Illustrious Republic of the German Princes,
many of the expounders of German imperial
law were continuing to speak of the monarchical
authority of the successor of Charlemagne. Simi-
larly, to-day, we are assured from many professorial
chairs that the German Empire is a Republic of
States, although every sober student of political
reahty must recognize at the first glance that the
imperial dominion inseparably associated with the
Prussian crown is by far the most powerful mon-
archical authority of Western Europe. Can any
one assert that the crown of England, Sweden,
Italy, or Belgium is more powerful than our im-
perial rule ? No one is better acquainted with the
facts than the members of that rude Party which
considers only the realities of power, for in the
inflammatory writings of the Anarchists there
is a perpetual recurrence of the complaint that
the German crown is the most strongly estab-
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? Our Empire 299
lished of all. The Emperor rules by God's will,
in virtue of inherent right ; he is not a delegate
of the Federal Council, nor yet a responsible
official. He is in command of the finest army in
the world, for that military independence which
attaches in time of peace to the crown of Bavaria
is altogether devoid of political significance; and
although the fusion of the four German officers'
corps to form a single body, like numerous other
simplifications, still remains a desideratum, the
German army, in organization, training, and above
all in its morale, is, to say the least of it, as sym-
metrical and as firmly united as are the armies of
the other Great Powers. The Emperor represents
the Empire in all foreign relations, and in the
language of diplomacy he is styled Empereur d'
Allemagne; through him alone does the political
will of Germany find expression in the community
of nations, and such expression that the right of the
German Princes to an independent representation
at foreign Courts has become no more than a sort
of harmless play-acting. He summons and dis-
misses the Federal Council as he opens and closes
the Reichstag. He possesses, not by law but by
the nature of things, the right of initiative, for all
legislative proposals of the Federal Council are
entrusted to the Emperor for execution. He
speaks to the Reichstag, not simply in the name of
the Federal Council, but, if he thinks fit, person-
ally as well ; no opposition to the imperial represen-
tative has ever manifested itself in the Federal
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? 300 Our Empire
Council, for our Princes have felt that no expres-
sion of their personal opinion should impinge upon
the living incorporation of imperial authority.
The Emperor possesses the power of veto in a few
cases which are expressly detailed in the Constitu-
tion, and is entitled to suspend the application of
an imperial law in those cases only in which he
doubts its formal validity; thus it may sometimes
happen that he will have to promulgate a law of
which he disapproves, but owing to the preponder-
ant power of Prussia this will far more rarely
happen in Germany than in most constitutional
monarchies. The Emperor is the director of the
whole imperial policy ; he supervises the execution of
the imperial laws, and although he is not invested,
as was formerly the Roman Emperor, with the
supreme judicial authority, his power has been
so long and so firmly established that important
controverted questions in the common law of the
individual states, such as the question of the
Brunswick trade, may in the last resort be decided
by the Emperor alone.
The two weaknesses which led to the destruction
of the old German monarchy have been completely
removed in the constitution of the New Empire.
Although the Emperor does not personally receive
a Civil List from the Empire, he is, as head of the
Executive, furnished with sufficient financial and
military powers. The Old Empire was the na-
tional monarchy in process of dissolution, whereas
the New Empire is the national monarchy in
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? Our Empire 301
process of evolution. The new imperialism has
renounced the theocratic claim to worid-dominion
which was made by the Holy Roman Empire, but
in the actual world of every day it has established
more firmly than ever the monarchical powers
that attached to the old imperial rule. In a mon-
archy the will of the state finds direct expression
in the determinations of an independent Head of
the Executive, whereas in a Republic it finds
expression as the outcome of the struggles of
parties and of the estates of the realm. An appli-
cation of these considerations to modem German
conditions renders incontestable the monarchical
character of the German Empire. Every fresh
political task imposed upon our people by the pro-
gress of history inevitably strengthens the mon-
archical authority of our Emperor. Our colonies
are acquired and protected by **His Majesty's
ships," by a portion of the national armed force
which is under the direct command of the Emperor;
and for a long time to come the political destinies
of these daughter-lands will be decided by imperial
letters and decrees in whose authorship the Federal
Council will have very little to say.
Now, as of old, the imperial dominion owes some
of the consideration that it receives to the prestige
of its own House. Not now, as in former days,
is Prussia, as a heritage of the House of Hapsburg,
estranged from the national life, and liberated from
the principal responsibilities of imperial rule;
it is German through and through, bearing all the
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? 302 Our Empire
burdens of Empire, and so richly endowed with
state-constructive energies that the Imperial Con-
stitution took bodily from Prussia several of its
most important institutions, and recent Prussian
history appears in many respects, though not
in all, as the precursor of the New Empire. At the
South German Courts, the inchoate character of
the Austrian hereditary dominion aroused at one
time justifiable suspicion; but the Prussian State
has, since the acquirements of the year 1866,
become so powerful, and has through the instru-
mentality of the imperial throne become so firmly
allied with the smaller lands of the Empire, that it
would be a false policy for Prussia to desire any
extension of its own boundaries at the expense
of its federal allies. Confidence in the justice
and moderation of the imperial policy is a firm
bond of imperial unity. It would be folly to for-
feit this confidence in a possibly fallacious hope of
a better adjustment of the Prussian boundary.
Consequently it was without regret that the
complete reunion of the old Guelph lands which re-
cently seemed so easy of attainment was renounced.
The prestige of the Imperial House is great enough
to effect by its own unaided powers many impor-
tant national tasks. The Prussian State is
competent to effect by itself the indispensable safe-
guarding of German rule on the eastern frontier.
Being thus supported by the prestige of the Impe-
rial House, the Imperial Rule has ever two strings
to its bow; by circuitous paths, and with the aid
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? Our Empire 303
of the Prussian legislative chamber, it is in a posi-
tion to gain ends which are unattainable by the
imperial route. When the brilliant plan for an
imperial system of railways broke down, the great
Prussian system of state railways immediately
came into being. Sooner or later the history of the
Zollverein (Customs Union) will certainly be
repeated, and in one way or another the Prussian
railway system will reach out to impose a firmer
and more harmonious order upon all the railways
of Germany.
As with the Imperial Dominion, so also has the
anciently grounded esteem for the Imperial
Chancellorship been reawakened among the Ger-
mans -- chiefly by the simple power of history, and
not by any deliberate purpose. In the Constitu-
tion of the North German Federation it was pro-
posed that the office of Chancellor should be held
as an accessory function by the first Prussian
plenipotentiary in the Federation, but the Reichs-
tag demanded the appointment of a responsible
representative of the federal policy, and inasmuch
as this constitutional responsibility was imposed
upon the Chancellor alone, his office acquired at the
outset an independent importance which no one
had foreseen. Out of this office has proceeded
the entire organism of our imperial officialdom.
In the New Empire, just as in the Old, the position
of the Chancellor is a duplex one : he is at the same
time the Chief Adviser of the Emperor and the
President of the Bundesrath (the Assembly of the
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? 304 Our Empire
Estates of the Empire). Now, the Elector of
Mainz was the chief of the Imperial Princes, and
as such was the natural representative of a federal
princely policy which was often sharply opposed
to the views of the Emperor, and from the time
when the imperial prestige more and more declined
his office of chief Imperial Councillor remained
to him merely as a name. The present Imperial
Chancellor, on the other hand, owing to the more
firmly monarchical constitution of the New Em-
pire, is merely an official directly appointed by the
Emperor; he can have no other will than that of
the monarch, and is unable to conduct the pro-
ceedings of the Bundesrath in any other sense
than that desired by his imperial master. He has
also a third duty, unknown to the Imperial Chan-
cellor of the ancient empire. The latter represented
his own country, but the Imperial Chancellor to-
day represents in the Bundesrath the heritage of
the Emperor, and in order to fulfil this duty he
must either himself preside over the Prussian
Cabinet, or must at least exercise a decisive
influence upon the internal policy of Prussia. It
is owing to the union of these three distinct func-
tions that the office of Imperial Chancellor has
acquired its peculiarly exalted value. Everyone
feels it to be an office precisely fitted for a states-
man of genius, and in the future too it can be
adequately filled only by men of note. But if the
little Republic of the Netherlands was able during
two centuries, from the days of Oldenbarne veldt
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? Our Empire 305
to those of Van de Spiegel, to find men of out-
standing talent to act as Chancellor, our great land
of Germany may confidently expect to do the like.
Like the imperial dominion and the imperial
chancellorship, the Bundesrath is also firmly rooted
in the history of the nation. As is well known, the
Bundesrath is the plenum or general assembly of
the Frankfort Bundestag, and this again was the
rump of the Ratisbon Reichstag. In the Bun-
desrath, the ancient representation of this estate of
the realm is renewed, for here finds expression, not
merely the political will of the countries of the
Empire, but also the personal will of the Imperial
Princes. For three decisive reasons the activity of
this body, formerly so quarrelsome and ineffective,
has become radically transformed and improved.
The preponderant power of the one leading coun-
try which has no rivals to reckon with gives to its
deliberations force and definiteness. By an ad-
mirable legal provision, the negligent are punished
simply by a deprivation of their vote, so that the
old-time neglect of plain duty has been rendered
impossible. Above all, the serious character of
the matters under discussion is an absolute barrier
to the occurrence of the empty formal quarrels of
the Frankfort and Ratisbon days. The Imperial
Princes are compelled to choose as their repre-
sentatives diligent and upright men.
The Bundesrath is endowed with some, but not
with all, of the prerogatives of an imperial govern-
ment; it is at the same time our House of States
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? 3o6 Our Empire
(Staatenhaus) , and as Council of State must utilize
the best powers of German officialdom in drafting
the imperial laws. In the exercise of this threefold
activity it has hitherto exceeded all expectation.
At the outset, everyone believed that in the repre-
sentation of the estates of the realm there would
be manifested a predominant tendency towards
separatism, justified and unjustified. These ex-
pectations were not fulfilled. Twice within a few
years has the Estate of the German Princes hap-
pily disappointed the nation's anticipations. The
very states which had so long and so fiercely re-
sisted the Prussian customs system honourably
fulfilled their new duties as soon as they had en-
tered the Prusso-German Zollverein. Those little
principalities, which had formerly taken up arms
against Prussian rule, displayed to-day, after the
decisive victory of Prussia, a German fidelity to the
Empire. ''What is given to the Empire is taken
from our freedom" -- this detestable principle,
which in the Old Empire dominated the policy of
all the estates of the realm, is no longer regarded as
applicable. In the imperial authority the govern-
ments of the federated countries see, in accordance
with their duty to the Fatherland, and with the
spirit of the Imperial Constitution, not a foreign
and hostile authority, but the authority of the
common national state, which safeguards their
own existence and in whose decisions they play an
effective part. Open treason is altogether im-
possible for the holders of little thrones which no
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? Our Empire 307
longer possess military independence ; quarrels and
intrigues will only do harm to the discontented;
he alone who renders unto the Empire the things
that are the Empire's can expect from the imperial
authority a benevolent attention to his interests.
In the days of the North German Confed ration,
and during the first years of the New Empire,
there might be doubt about the sentiments that
prevailed at many of the smaller Courts; but so
general a community of interests has now become
established that it may be asserted that a reason-
able separatism is only possible on the basis of
fidelity to the Empire. Even an ultramontane
government in Bavaria -- if such a misfortune could
arise -- would now hardly be in a position to defy
the imperial authority. If it wished to make any
advance towards the fulfilment of the plans of the
party dominant in Bavaria it would first have to
endeavour, by good service, to make itself indis-
pensable to the Empire. The many-headedness of
the Bundesrath has delayed numerous reforms
and has proved a complete obstacle to some,
but party differences have never manifested them-
selves within this body. Although it seemed an
obvious and dangerous possibility that the Govern-
ment, outvoted in the Bundesrath, should combine
with the parties in the Reichstag against the
majority in the Bundesrath, yet, with isolated
exceptions, the idea of this has always been dis-
dainfully rejected. As a rule, the struggle of
interests in the Bundesrath is fought out quietly
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? 3o8 Our Empire
and in a friendly spirit, and as soon as a decision
has been arrived at the Government approaches
the Reichstag with a united front. The govern-
ments of the individual members of the federation
often find themselves quite unable to satisfy the
increasing demands of modern social life, and are
forced in their own interest to favour an increase
in the imperial authority. The first proposal
to enlarge the federal power was made by the
Kingdom of Saxony in the days of the North Ger-
man Federation, although Saxony a few years
earlier had been one of the most ardent opponents
of Prussian federal reform. But now, owing to
the rapid development of the commerce of Saxony,
this country felt the need of a supreme tribunal of
commerce. Moreover, without the protection of
the Empire, this little kingdom would find itself
unable permanently to restrain the power of the
social democracy ; similarly, the Bundesrath had to
give its assent to the new imperial taxes, for an
economic balance between the individual countries
of the federation could be maintained no other
way.
Twenty years are a brief period in the life of
nations, but the last two decades have been
extraordinarily fruitful in great experiences, justi-
fying the hope that with the remedial memento mori
of the year 1866 a new and better epoch began in
the changeful history of the German Princely
Estate. These great houses often sinned greatly
by their resistance to the imperial dominion of the
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? Our Empire 309
Middle Ages, but they were the founders of the
States and the towns of the German nation, and
in the centuries of the reHgious wars they proved
themselves the saviours of German civilization.
Then the Greek gift of the Napoleonic sovereignty
clouded their minds, with so dangerous an ulti-
mate effect that in the later years of the German
Bund there loomed ever nearer the possibility of
a general mediatization. The German dynasties
have good reasons to bless the memory of the
catastrophe of 1 866. In the great crises of national
life war is always a milder remedy than revolution,
for it safeguards fidelity, and its ivssue appears as a
judgment of God. Very rarely indeed has any
great historical transformation been effected with
so much moderation, and with so trifling an injury
to the sense of justice. The victor in the struggle
was content with the annihilation of one of the
most culpable of the smaller states, and the an-
nexation of this North German area was so fully
justified by its results that everyone, with infini-
tesimal exceptions, came to recognize its necessity.
The rescued dynasties now find themselves in a
more fortunate situation than formerly under the
German Bund. It is true that they have lost their
independent sovereignty, but this high-sounding
name was a curse for the minor principalities
themselves; they had no power whatever to con-
duct an independent European policy, and their
military independence was misused for foreign
ends by powerful neighbours like France and Aus-
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? 310 Our Empire
tria. In place of this they now possess a legally
restricted but effective share in the decisions of
the German Empire, the first of the great Powers
of Europe. Whereas since the Seven Years*
War they had perforce continually trembled for
their existence, they now enjoy a security never
known before. Any Prince of the Empire who
fulfils his duty to the community can reckon upon
unconditional protection and support. It is the
Empire which imposes upon the people the duty of
military service and the heavy burdens of taxation.
The prince retains all those prerogatives which
bring popular favour; under his guardianship is
all that renders life beautiful and secure ; he appears
as the public benefactor in the exercise of that
peaceful civilizing activity which has ever been the
stronger side of German separatism. On well-
considered grounds the Empire has avoided any
interference with the right of the smaller Courts to
confer titles and honours, however ridiculous it
may seem that we should still speak officially
of a ''Bavarian Empire. " Despite the loss of its
sovereign powers, the German Estate of Princes
still remains the loftiest nobility in the world; its
sons occupy nearly all the thrones of Europe; all
the world over, the usage of the royal Courts is in
accordance with the German princely customs.
In this distinguished circle the Emperor moves,
not as of old endowed with the dignity of a feudal
suzerain, but in the modest function of primus inter
pares.
? Germany's Protestant Freedom 283
influence of the Swedish veterans who took ser-
vice under the Red Eagle, many Swedish mihtary
practices were introduced into the young army,
such as a ready mobiHty of the troops, increased
rapidity of fire for the infantry, and the use of
Gustavus Adolphus* war-cry, "Gott mit uns! "
Yet so ambiguous are all historical tendencies, that
it was Frederick William who first began the de-
struction of the political work of his uncle. The
Swedes exacted the payment of a terrible price
for their help. They established themselves as
masters along all our coasts, and, as Frederick
WilHam complained, the Weser, the Elbe, and the
Oder were all in foreign hands. For nearly two
hundred years Prussia had to struggle, now with
the sword and now with the pen, against the
Swedish dominion, from the time of the first
Northern War and the victory of Fehrbellin,
in 1675, until at length, in the year 1815, the last
traces of Swedish control passed away and North
Germany once more became master in its own
household.
Of the three colossi whose names then filled the
world with alarm, the figure of Wallenstein appears
the gloomiest. He was, unquestionably, a great
warrior, yet a homeless man, always willing to
sacrifice his nationality and his faith on the shrine
of his ambition. He was an adventurer of genius,
hoping now for an Italian and now for a German
princely coronet ; now dreaming of a world dominion
for the House of Hapsburg, now of a Holy War
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? 284 Germany's Protestant Freedom
against the Turks, and now of a new sack of
Rome ; and yet amid all these gigantic plans think-
ing always and only of his own great ego. "God
in heaven; I, myself, on earth, " such was his blas-
phemous motto, and he died the dreadful death of
the betrayer. A more auspicious figure is that of
Richelieu, for this French Bismarck was firmly
planted upon that soil of nationality wherein is
rooted all political greatness. He brought to
completion all that which the policy of the French
kings had been carefully preparing for centuries,
the unity of his Fatherland. But alike in nobiHty
of soul and in human greatness Gustavus Adolphus
excels both the others. His fate resembled that of
Alexander of Macedon, for the two men were
alike in the rapidity of their victory and in their
sudden and premature deaths. Alexander's world-
dominion broke up upon the death of its founder,
but for hundreds of years what he had done for
the civilization of humanity remained. He com-
pelled the Greeks to replace Greek nationalism by
the citizenship of the world; he transformed the
material rule of Greece into the dominion of the
Greek spirit; he disseminated Greek culture
throughout Asia Minor, and thus it became possi-
ble for the message of the Christian gospels to be
conveyed in the Greek tongue to all the Mediter-
ranean peoples. In like manner vanished the
greater Scandinavian Empire of Gustavus Adol-
phus. Neither of the two artificially constructed
Great Powers of the seventeenth century, the sea-
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? Germany's Protestant Freedom 285
power of Holland and the land-power of Sweden,
could persist, for their foundations were too slender;
the one was overthrown by England, and the other
by Prussian Germany, which were better in a
position to maintain themselves as Great Powers,
being endowed with stronger natural forces. But
that which has persisted, that which, God willing,
shall persist for all time, is the free Protestant
Word, which Gustavus Adolphus preserved for the
heart of Europe; that which has persisted is the
living mutual tolerance of the German creeds.
Upon these things has been established our new
united Empire, unified politically though composite
ecclesiastically; upon these things has been estab-
lished our entire modern civilization; upon these
rests that fine humanity which enables the Ger-
mans, Protestants and Catholics alike, to enjoy a
thought which is at once free and pious.
It is for these reasons that to-day with full heart
we express our thankfulness to our Swedish kins-
men and neighbours, to those who first received at
our hands the blessings of the Reformation, and sub-
sequently sent us as saviour the Lion of the North-
land. Nowhere is this gratitude more manifest
than in this youthful colony of Old Germany,
which a wonderful destiny has raised to the premier
position in the new Empire. For three hundred
years only did these countries of the March belong
to the Romish Church, and for more than three and
a half centuries now have they enjoyed Protestant
freedom. Here we live and work in the free air of
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? 286 Germany's Protestant Freedom
Protestantism. Not with a view to the re-opening
of old wounds, but simply in order to give honour
where honour is due, has Protestant Germany-
grounded upon the name of the Swedish King that
noble institution which brings help and consolation
to our oppressed Protestant brethren throughout
the world. Gustavus Adolphus does not belong
to a single nation, but to the whole of Protestant
Christendom.
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? OUR EMPIRE
{Berlin, 1886. )
[Prefatory Note by Translator. -- In the essay which follows,
Treitschke employs the terms monarchy and monarchical, some-
times in the sense usual in England, sometimes rather to signify
autocracy and autocratic. I have thought it preferable to retain the
former terms throughout, as the context will always make the
meaning evident, once the reader's attention has been drawn to
the possible ambiguity. ]
TWENTY-TWO years ago, when I wrote my es-
say upon ' * The Federal State and the Central-
ized State" (Bundesstaat und Einheitsstaat) , I had
an obscure premonition that a great hour was
approaching for our Fatherland, and that the
good sword of Prussia would cut the Gordian knot
of the old federal policy. Since then, by a wonder-
ful dispensation of Providence, the boldest dreams
that I ventured in the above-mentioned essay have
been realized to a degree exceeding my utmost
expectations, and the rich history of our re-estab-
lished Empire has rendered necessary a critical
revision of the theory of confederations and other
unions of states. As long ago as 1874 I myself
attempted a scientific appreciation of our recently
acquired political experiences, and in the present
essay I give no more than a summary of what
287
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? 288 Our Empire
I then expounded in detail in my treatise on
"Federation and Empire" {Bund und Reich).
The theory of G. Waitz, which assumes in the
federal state a division of sovereignty between the
central administration and the separate states of
the federation, is not merely inapplicable to Ger-
man conditions, but is in open contradiction with
the very nature of the vState, and also with the
constitution of the Swiss Confederation and with
that of the American Union. For the very reason
that the chief administration is the chief, a division
of its sovereignty is inconceivable, and the sole
scientifically possible distinction between the con-
federation of states and the federal state is to be
found in this, that in the confederation of states
sovereignty attaches to the members of the
confederation, to the individual states, whereas
in the federal state it attaches to the centralized
unity. The confederation of states is a union
of sovereign states based upon international law;
the individual elements of the confederation are
not the citizens of the respective states of the
confederation, but the national governments of
these, and the said governments are competent,
in accordance with international law, to declare
the confederation dissolved in the event of any
breach in its constitution. The federal state is an
image of state-right, and is for this reason, like any
other state, legally eternal and indissoluble. Its ad-
ministration has the unrestricted power possessed
by that of any sovereign state. It passes laws
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? Our Empire 289
which override the individual-state laws, and which
must be obeyed by the individual states and by the
citizens of these ; in the carrying of its decisions into
effect it employs, as the circumstances may dictate,
now its own immediate officials, now the individual
states, and sometimes both together, but always
retains the powers of supervision and control;
finally, in it is vested the determination of the
prerogatives of the individual states, for the central
government of the federal state always possesses
the faculty of enlarging its own powers by a
revision of the constitution. Directly a confedera-
tion of states becomes transformed into a federal
state, the sovereignty of the individual states
disappears, for the individual states become subject
to the authority of the newly formed federal state,
and are liable to be punished by this last for dis-
obedience or high treason -- as was proved alike
theoretically and practically by the Civil War in
the United States of America. The federal state
is more closely akin than is the confederation of
states to the fully unified state, the sole difference
being that in the case of the federal state the deci-
sions of the central government come into effect
only through the co-operation of the individual
states, and that the prerogatives still retained by
these have not been formally handed over to the
central power. For this reason the transition from
a confederation of states to a federal state is a
process which always involves severe struggles and
often actual war, for the individual states of a
19
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? 290 Our Empire
confederation will not readily abandon their
sovereign powers.
This federal state constitution such as is pos-
sessed by Switzerland and the United States has
certain characteristics which belong also to the
constitution of the German Empire. Our Empire,
too, possesses a supreme centralized administra-
tion, whose decisions are effected in co-operation
with the individual states, decisions, obedience to
which is exacted alike from these states and from
their citizens. With us, also, the principle holds
good that national law overrides state law. Like
the states of the American Union and like the Swiss
Cantons, the individual German states have lost
their sovereignty, and from the strictly scientific
standpoint can no longer be regarded as states, for
they lack the two rights upon which, so long as
there has been any theory of government, the idea
of sovereignty has been grounded -- the right to
take up arms, and the power to determine the ex-
tent of their own prerogatives. They do not pos-
sess personal or individual freedom of action under
international law ; in the society of states they can-
not exhibit the powers of an independent will,
and they are subordinated to the Empire which
protects them with the might of its arms ; they are
incompetent to enlarge the sphere of their own
prerogatives in accordance with their own desires,
for they must rest content with the prerogatives
allotted to them by the central government, which
always retains the power of further restriction.
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? Our Empire 291
It is true that the language of the Constitution as
well as the language of common life speaks of the
States of the German Confederation; but the
Constitution, more especially in respect of these
complicated federal relationships, is always guided
by historical considerations, or by considerations of
political expediency, and is thereby often involved
in error from the strictly scientific outlook. The
states of the Republic of the United Netherlands
were for two hundred years officially styled
"Provinces," although they were unquestionably
sovereign states. In Switzerland, the sovereign
members of the Confederation were from 18 14
onw^ards given the modest name of Canton, and
this name was preserved after the radical alteration
of the constitution in the year 1848; whereas the
individual members of the North American Union
retain in the federal state the title of State under
which they entered the original confederation.
It might seem desirable, for the sake of peace,
to avoid the open proclamation of this truth,
which is disagreeab e to the advocates of sepa-
ratism; but science must not lie, must not out
of respect to the vanity of the German princes
abandon those fundamentals of political theory
which have been acquired by the difficult labour
of hundreds of years -- must pay no attention to the
foolish dicta of not a few professors, to the effect
that to-day there exist "non-sovereign" as well as
"sovereign states. " Since it is certain that any
community becomes a state from the moment that
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? 292 Our Empire
it attains to sovereignty, and since it is certain that
a state becomes transformed into a province
directly it is forced to recognize the sovereignty of a
conqueror, it necessarily follows that in sovereignty
is to be found the essential characteristic of the
state, the characteristic by which the state is dis-
tinguished from all other human communities. A
*' state of states, " a state that rules over states, is
theoretically an absurdity, and in practice it is
unending anarchy. Such a state of states was
the monstrum politicum of Pufendorf, the Holy
Roman Empire in its closing centuries. When we
find Ludolf Hugo, Putter, and other imperial
publicists, endeavouring to find consolation for
the miseries of Germany in the insane notions
of the Over-State and the Under-State, we may
ascribe this to the urgency of patriotic need; but
we must not apply to the active and vigorous
national structures of our own day these oppor-
tunist phrases born out of the processes of decom-
position of a community on the way to destruction.
The communities subordinated to the authority
of a modern federal state are themselves no longer
states, and this statement applies to the individual
communities which make up the German Empire.
Such superficial comparisons, however, hardly
touch the kernel of the matter. No reflective
statesman can deny that our Empire is a quite
pecuHar structure, sharply distinguished in its
history, in its position in the world, and in its
aims, from the federal states of America and
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? Our Empire 293
Switzerland. The high-sounding phrase, ' ' Empire
is a concept utterly foreign to the domain of
Public Law," does not render non-existent this
incontrovertible fact. The Empire exists and will
continue to flourish long after the present doctrines
of imperial law have been forgotten. It does not
become theory to endeavour to fit the great new
formations of history to the Procrustean bed of
ready-made concepts. Theory remains true only
when it continues to learn from life, and when its
concepts are subject to continuous transformation
in accordance with the teachings of experience.
Law is ever subject to the danger of becoming
enmeshed in its own formalisms; the doctrine of
public law becomes utterly futile if it attempts
to throw a dam athwart the main stream of history,
if it shirks the labour of studying, in addition to the
frame-work of existing laws, those laws also which
are decaying and those which are springing to life,
if it refuses to pay due attention to those political
relationships which are undergoing incorporation in
constitutional forms.
Anyone properly equipped with the historical
sense, who approaches the study of German im-
perial law, cannot fail to recognize two important
distinctions which forbid any comparison with
the federal states of America and Switzerland.
The constitution of these two federal states rests
upon the equality of all the members of the federal
union, but our imperial constitution rests upon
inequality, upon the preponderant power of
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? 294 Our Empire
Prussia. To the crown of this leading State is
attached a hereditary right to the imperial throne;
and there is attached also a monarchical dominion
which, though still incomplete in form, grows
stronger daily under our very eyes, and which
represents the ideas of national unity far more
effectively than the central authority of a federal
state can ever represent them. In the great days
of its history, Germany was a national monarchy.
As this monarchical feudal dominion fell to pieces
and the power of its kingship passed into the hands
of the estates of the Empire, a new monarchical
Power, that of the Crown of Prussia, gradually
became established upon the site of these territorial
states. It was Prussia which created our new Em-
pire, which liberated us from Austria, and which,
by the annexations of the year 1866, enlarged
the area of its own direct rule, and thus became
empowered to direct the fate of the whole of Ger-
many. By right of sword, by the might of estab-
lished fact, Prussia was enabled to impose upon
the sovereign states of the North the compacts
which led to the formation of the North German
Federation; and this new national state was sub-
sequently joined by the states of South Germany,
for these recognized that the maintenance of their
independent sovereignty had become impossible,
and they were no longer able to resist the national
impulse towards unity, which had now at length
found full expression. The Prussian army and
navy, the Prussian postal and telegraphic services,
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? Our Empire '295
the Prussian customs, and the Prussian banking
system, underwent expansion to become general
German institutions. Without any sacrifice,
Prussia was able to make to the Empire a free gift
of her navy and her postal service, and to arrange
for much of the imperial business to be conducted
by her own officials; for in truth the Prussian
State had conducted three victorious campaigns,
not in order immediately thereafter to subject
herself to a newly created imperial authority, but
in order to maintain and enlarge her own dominion,
to take into her own hands the imperial hegemony,
with the co-operation of the smaller allied states.
The result is that Prussia, however carefully
the wording of the Constitution may conceal the
fact, occupies in reality and in law a position alto-
gether different from that occupied by the other
countries of the Empire. The Prussian State
alone has remained a true state. Prussia alone
cannot be constrained by executive decree to the
fulfilment of her imperial duties, for in the hands
of the Emperor rests the enforcement of such a
decree -- and the Emperor is King of Prussia. The
entire imperial policy reposes upon the tacit
assumption that there cannot possibly exist a
permanent conflict between the will of the Empire
and the will of the Prussian State. In matters of
subordinate importance, the dominant state may
display a yielding disposition; it does, indeed,
exhibit such a disposition to a high degree, and this
even in cases where the Prussian view is unques-
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? 296 Our Empire
tionably the right one -- witness, for example, the
absurd imperial law in accordance with which
the seat of the imperial court of law is placed else-
where than in the capital city of the Empire. But
in all matters of decisive importance Prussia has
the determining voice, and the good sense of the
nation has long recognized that this new order of
things corresponds to the distribution of power
and is in accordance with the dictates of simple
justice. Of all the countries of the Empire, Prussia
alone retains the right of taking up arms, for the
King of Prussia is also, as Emperor, the War-Lord
of the Empire. The Prussian State alone cannot
be deprived against its will of the prerogatives with
which it is endowed by the Imperial Constitution,
for Prussia possesses seventeen votes in the Federal
Council, and these suffice to safeguard it in this
respect. Thus from the historical point of view
the German Empire is the Prussian-German
Unified State, with the accessory countries as-
sociated with Prussia as federal companions.
The necessary and valuable hegemony of the
Prussian State is, however, exercised under forms
which carefully safeguard the legitimate self-
respect of our princes and peoples. It is by the
nature of things, even more than in virtue of
the deliberate intentions of statesmen, that the
German State has been re-conducted into the
channels of the old imperial law. All that was
just and wise in the institutions of the Holy
Empire is revived under our own eyes in new forms.
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?
Our Empire 297
Our Imperial Constitution is at once old and young ;
it has revivified the ancient and unforgotten politi-
cal traditions of our race in so far as these were
adapted to the tendencies and needs of our day.
It is for this reason that within so short a time the
people has given its full confidence to the new order.
Those only who have grasped the interconnection
between the old elements and the new will under-
stand the political character of the new Empire,
which presents as united an aspect among the
community of modern states as was ever presented
by the Empire of old.
Now, as of old, the great names, Emperor and
Empire, exercise their charm upon the German
spirit, and this above all in those Franconian and
Suabian regions which were so long altogether
hostile to the Prussian State, and which only
through their firmly established sense of imperial
loyalty have been enabled to regain an understand-
ing of the creative energies of this new epoch
in our history. The honour thus paid to the
imperial name is no empty sport of the popular
imagination. On the ever-memorable day of
Versailles, King William expressly stated that it
was his determination to re-establish the imperial
dignity which had been in abeyance for sixty years,
to resume the crown of Charlemagne and the
old single-headed eagle. The imperial dignity of
the Hohenzollern is the most ancient and most
venerable in all the world. In the course of
centuries many changes have occurred in the
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? 298 Our Empire
boundaries of Germany ; within quite recent times
considerable losses were suffered in the South-East,
whilst compensatory expansion occurred in Alsace-
Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein, Old Prussia, and
Posen. Nevertheless, in the political sense, though
not in the strictly legal sense, this New Empire is
the successor of the Old; herein has the National
State of the Germans found its new expression.
Anything is possible to the German doctrinaire.
In the days when the imperial authority had be-
come a mere shadow, and when Frederick the Great,
with clear insight, described the fallen Empire as
the Illustrious Republic of the German Princes,
many of the expounders of German imperial
law were continuing to speak of the monarchical
authority of the successor of Charlemagne. Simi-
larly, to-day, we are assured from many professorial
chairs that the German Empire is a Republic of
States, although every sober student of political
reahty must recognize at the first glance that the
imperial dominion inseparably associated with the
Prussian crown is by far the most powerful mon-
archical authority of Western Europe. Can any
one assert that the crown of England, Sweden,
Italy, or Belgium is more powerful than our im-
perial rule ? No one is better acquainted with the
facts than the members of that rude Party which
considers only the realities of power, for in the
inflammatory writings of the Anarchists there
is a perpetual recurrence of the complaint that
the German crown is the most strongly estab-
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? Our Empire 299
lished of all. The Emperor rules by God's will,
in virtue of inherent right ; he is not a delegate
of the Federal Council, nor yet a responsible
official. He is in command of the finest army in
the world, for that military independence which
attaches in time of peace to the crown of Bavaria
is altogether devoid of political significance; and
although the fusion of the four German officers'
corps to form a single body, like numerous other
simplifications, still remains a desideratum, the
German army, in organization, training, and above
all in its morale, is, to say the least of it, as sym-
metrical and as firmly united as are the armies of
the other Great Powers. The Emperor represents
the Empire in all foreign relations, and in the
language of diplomacy he is styled Empereur d'
Allemagne; through him alone does the political
will of Germany find expression in the community
of nations, and such expression that the right of the
German Princes to an independent representation
at foreign Courts has become no more than a sort
of harmless play-acting. He summons and dis-
misses the Federal Council as he opens and closes
the Reichstag. He possesses, not by law but by
the nature of things, the right of initiative, for all
legislative proposals of the Federal Council are
entrusted to the Emperor for execution. He
speaks to the Reichstag, not simply in the name of
the Federal Council, but, if he thinks fit, person-
ally as well ; no opposition to the imperial represen-
tative has ever manifested itself in the Federal
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? 300 Our Empire
Council, for our Princes have felt that no expres-
sion of their personal opinion should impinge upon
the living incorporation of imperial authority.
The Emperor possesses the power of veto in a few
cases which are expressly detailed in the Constitu-
tion, and is entitled to suspend the application of
an imperial law in those cases only in which he
doubts its formal validity; thus it may sometimes
happen that he will have to promulgate a law of
which he disapproves, but owing to the preponder-
ant power of Prussia this will far more rarely
happen in Germany than in most constitutional
monarchies. The Emperor is the director of the
whole imperial policy ; he supervises the execution of
the imperial laws, and although he is not invested,
as was formerly the Roman Emperor, with the
supreme judicial authority, his power has been
so long and so firmly established that important
controverted questions in the common law of the
individual states, such as the question of the
Brunswick trade, may in the last resort be decided
by the Emperor alone.
The two weaknesses which led to the destruction
of the old German monarchy have been completely
removed in the constitution of the New Empire.
Although the Emperor does not personally receive
a Civil List from the Empire, he is, as head of the
Executive, furnished with sufficient financial and
military powers. The Old Empire was the na-
tional monarchy in process of dissolution, whereas
the New Empire is the national monarchy in
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? Our Empire 301
process of evolution. The new imperialism has
renounced the theocratic claim to worid-dominion
which was made by the Holy Roman Empire, but
in the actual world of every day it has established
more firmly than ever the monarchical powers
that attached to the old imperial rule. In a mon-
archy the will of the state finds direct expression
in the determinations of an independent Head of
the Executive, whereas in a Republic it finds
expression as the outcome of the struggles of
parties and of the estates of the realm. An appli-
cation of these considerations to modem German
conditions renders incontestable the monarchical
character of the German Empire. Every fresh
political task imposed upon our people by the pro-
gress of history inevitably strengthens the mon-
archical authority of our Emperor. Our colonies
are acquired and protected by **His Majesty's
ships," by a portion of the national armed force
which is under the direct command of the Emperor;
and for a long time to come the political destinies
of these daughter-lands will be decided by imperial
letters and decrees in whose authorship the Federal
Council will have very little to say.
Now, as of old, the imperial dominion owes some
of the consideration that it receives to the prestige
of its own House. Not now, as in former days,
is Prussia, as a heritage of the House of Hapsburg,
estranged from the national life, and liberated from
the principal responsibilities of imperial rule;
it is German through and through, bearing all the
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? 302 Our Empire
burdens of Empire, and so richly endowed with
state-constructive energies that the Imperial Con-
stitution took bodily from Prussia several of its
most important institutions, and recent Prussian
history appears in many respects, though not
in all, as the precursor of the New Empire. At the
South German Courts, the inchoate character of
the Austrian hereditary dominion aroused at one
time justifiable suspicion; but the Prussian State
has, since the acquirements of the year 1866,
become so powerful, and has through the instru-
mentality of the imperial throne become so firmly
allied with the smaller lands of the Empire, that it
would be a false policy for Prussia to desire any
extension of its own boundaries at the expense
of its federal allies. Confidence in the justice
and moderation of the imperial policy is a firm
bond of imperial unity. It would be folly to for-
feit this confidence in a possibly fallacious hope of
a better adjustment of the Prussian boundary.
Consequently it was without regret that the
complete reunion of the old Guelph lands which re-
cently seemed so easy of attainment was renounced.
The prestige of the Imperial House is great enough
to effect by its own unaided powers many impor-
tant national tasks. The Prussian State is
competent to effect by itself the indispensable safe-
guarding of German rule on the eastern frontier.
Being thus supported by the prestige of the Impe-
rial House, the Imperial Rule has ever two strings
to its bow; by circuitous paths, and with the aid
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? Our Empire 303
of the Prussian legislative chamber, it is in a posi-
tion to gain ends which are unattainable by the
imperial route. When the brilliant plan for an
imperial system of railways broke down, the great
Prussian system of state railways immediately
came into being. Sooner or later the history of the
Zollverein (Customs Union) will certainly be
repeated, and in one way or another the Prussian
railway system will reach out to impose a firmer
and more harmonious order upon all the railways
of Germany.
As with the Imperial Dominion, so also has the
anciently grounded esteem for the Imperial
Chancellorship been reawakened among the Ger-
mans -- chiefly by the simple power of history, and
not by any deliberate purpose. In the Constitu-
tion of the North German Federation it was pro-
posed that the office of Chancellor should be held
as an accessory function by the first Prussian
plenipotentiary in the Federation, but the Reichs-
tag demanded the appointment of a responsible
representative of the federal policy, and inasmuch
as this constitutional responsibility was imposed
upon the Chancellor alone, his office acquired at the
outset an independent importance which no one
had foreseen. Out of this office has proceeded
the entire organism of our imperial officialdom.
In the New Empire, just as in the Old, the position
of the Chancellor is a duplex one : he is at the same
time the Chief Adviser of the Emperor and the
President of the Bundesrath (the Assembly of the
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? 304 Our Empire
Estates of the Empire). Now, the Elector of
Mainz was the chief of the Imperial Princes, and
as such was the natural representative of a federal
princely policy which was often sharply opposed
to the views of the Emperor, and from the time
when the imperial prestige more and more declined
his office of chief Imperial Councillor remained
to him merely as a name. The present Imperial
Chancellor, on the other hand, owing to the more
firmly monarchical constitution of the New Em-
pire, is merely an official directly appointed by the
Emperor; he can have no other will than that of
the monarch, and is unable to conduct the pro-
ceedings of the Bundesrath in any other sense
than that desired by his imperial master. He has
also a third duty, unknown to the Imperial Chan-
cellor of the ancient empire. The latter represented
his own country, but the Imperial Chancellor to-
day represents in the Bundesrath the heritage of
the Emperor, and in order to fulfil this duty he
must either himself preside over the Prussian
Cabinet, or must at least exercise a decisive
influence upon the internal policy of Prussia. It
is owing to the union of these three distinct func-
tions that the office of Imperial Chancellor has
acquired its peculiarly exalted value. Everyone
feels it to be an office precisely fitted for a states-
man of genius, and in the future too it can be
adequately filled only by men of note. But if the
little Republic of the Netherlands was able during
two centuries, from the days of Oldenbarne veldt
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? Our Empire 305
to those of Van de Spiegel, to find men of out-
standing talent to act as Chancellor, our great land
of Germany may confidently expect to do the like.
Like the imperial dominion and the imperial
chancellorship, the Bundesrath is also firmly rooted
in the history of the nation. As is well known, the
Bundesrath is the plenum or general assembly of
the Frankfort Bundestag, and this again was the
rump of the Ratisbon Reichstag. In the Bun-
desrath, the ancient representation of this estate of
the realm is renewed, for here finds expression, not
merely the political will of the countries of the
Empire, but also the personal will of the Imperial
Princes. For three decisive reasons the activity of
this body, formerly so quarrelsome and ineffective,
has become radically transformed and improved.
The preponderant power of the one leading coun-
try which has no rivals to reckon with gives to its
deliberations force and definiteness. By an ad-
mirable legal provision, the negligent are punished
simply by a deprivation of their vote, so that the
old-time neglect of plain duty has been rendered
impossible. Above all, the serious character of
the matters under discussion is an absolute barrier
to the occurrence of the empty formal quarrels of
the Frankfort and Ratisbon days. The Imperial
Princes are compelled to choose as their repre-
sentatives diligent and upright men.
The Bundesrath is endowed with some, but not
with all, of the prerogatives of an imperial govern-
ment; it is at the same time our House of States
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? 3o6 Our Empire
(Staatenhaus) , and as Council of State must utilize
the best powers of German officialdom in drafting
the imperial laws. In the exercise of this threefold
activity it has hitherto exceeded all expectation.
At the outset, everyone believed that in the repre-
sentation of the estates of the realm there would
be manifested a predominant tendency towards
separatism, justified and unjustified. These ex-
pectations were not fulfilled. Twice within a few
years has the Estate of the German Princes hap-
pily disappointed the nation's anticipations. The
very states which had so long and so fiercely re-
sisted the Prussian customs system honourably
fulfilled their new duties as soon as they had en-
tered the Prusso-German Zollverein. Those little
principalities, which had formerly taken up arms
against Prussian rule, displayed to-day, after the
decisive victory of Prussia, a German fidelity to the
Empire. ''What is given to the Empire is taken
from our freedom" -- this detestable principle,
which in the Old Empire dominated the policy of
all the estates of the realm, is no longer regarded as
applicable. In the imperial authority the govern-
ments of the federated countries see, in accordance
with their duty to the Fatherland, and with the
spirit of the Imperial Constitution, not a foreign
and hostile authority, but the authority of the
common national state, which safeguards their
own existence and in whose decisions they play an
effective part. Open treason is altogether im-
possible for the holders of little thrones which no
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? Our Empire 307
longer possess military independence ; quarrels and
intrigues will only do harm to the discontented;
he alone who renders unto the Empire the things
that are the Empire's can expect from the imperial
authority a benevolent attention to his interests.
In the days of the North German Confed ration,
and during the first years of the New Empire,
there might be doubt about the sentiments that
prevailed at many of the smaller Courts; but so
general a community of interests has now become
established that it may be asserted that a reason-
able separatism is only possible on the basis of
fidelity to the Empire. Even an ultramontane
government in Bavaria -- if such a misfortune could
arise -- would now hardly be in a position to defy
the imperial authority. If it wished to make any
advance towards the fulfilment of the plans of the
party dominant in Bavaria it would first have to
endeavour, by good service, to make itself indis-
pensable to the Empire. The many-headedness of
the Bundesrath has delayed numerous reforms
and has proved a complete obstacle to some,
but party differences have never manifested them-
selves within this body. Although it seemed an
obvious and dangerous possibility that the Govern-
ment, outvoted in the Bundesrath, should combine
with the parties in the Reichstag against the
majority in the Bundesrath, yet, with isolated
exceptions, the idea of this has always been dis-
dainfully rejected. As a rule, the struggle of
interests in the Bundesrath is fought out quietly
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? 3o8 Our Empire
and in a friendly spirit, and as soon as a decision
has been arrived at the Government approaches
the Reichstag with a united front. The govern-
ments of the individual members of the federation
often find themselves quite unable to satisfy the
increasing demands of modern social life, and are
forced in their own interest to favour an increase
in the imperial authority. The first proposal
to enlarge the federal power was made by the
Kingdom of Saxony in the days of the North Ger-
man Federation, although Saxony a few years
earlier had been one of the most ardent opponents
of Prussian federal reform. But now, owing to
the rapid development of the commerce of Saxony,
this country felt the need of a supreme tribunal of
commerce. Moreover, without the protection of
the Empire, this little kingdom would find itself
unable permanently to restrain the power of the
social democracy ; similarly, the Bundesrath had to
give its assent to the new imperial taxes, for an
economic balance between the individual countries
of the federation could be maintained no other
way.
Twenty years are a brief period in the life of
nations, but the last two decades have been
extraordinarily fruitful in great experiences, justi-
fying the hope that with the remedial memento mori
of the year 1866 a new and better epoch began in
the changeful history of the German Princely
Estate. These great houses often sinned greatly
by their resistance to the imperial dominion of the
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? Our Empire 309
Middle Ages, but they were the founders of the
States and the towns of the German nation, and
in the centuries of the reHgious wars they proved
themselves the saviours of German civilization.
Then the Greek gift of the Napoleonic sovereignty
clouded their minds, with so dangerous an ulti-
mate effect that in the later years of the German
Bund there loomed ever nearer the possibility of
a general mediatization. The German dynasties
have good reasons to bless the memory of the
catastrophe of 1 866. In the great crises of national
life war is always a milder remedy than revolution,
for it safeguards fidelity, and its ivssue appears as a
judgment of God. Very rarely indeed has any
great historical transformation been effected with
so much moderation, and with so trifling an injury
to the sense of justice. The victor in the struggle
was content with the annihilation of one of the
most culpable of the smaller states, and the an-
nexation of this North German area was so fully
justified by its results that everyone, with infini-
tesimal exceptions, came to recognize its necessity.
The rescued dynasties now find themselves in a
more fortunate situation than formerly under the
German Bund. It is true that they have lost their
independent sovereignty, but this high-sounding
name was a curse for the minor principalities
themselves; they had no power whatever to con-
duct an independent European policy, and their
military independence was misused for foreign
ends by powerful neighbours like France and Aus-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-05 01:03 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/loc. ark:/13960/t14m9qp6g Public Domain in the United States / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us
? 310 Our Empire
tria. In place of this they now possess a legally
restricted but effective share in the decisions of
the German Empire, the first of the great Powers
of Europe. Whereas since the Seven Years*
War they had perforce continually trembled for
their existence, they now enjoy a security never
known before. Any Prince of the Empire who
fulfils his duty to the community can reckon upon
unconditional protection and support. It is the
Empire which imposes upon the people the duty of
military service and the heavy burdens of taxation.
The prince retains all those prerogatives which
bring popular favour; under his guardianship is
all that renders life beautiful and secure ; he appears
as the public benefactor in the exercise of that
peaceful civilizing activity which has ever been the
stronger side of German separatism. On well-
considered grounds the Empire has avoided any
interference with the right of the smaller Courts to
confer titles and honours, however ridiculous it
may seem that we should still speak officially
of a ''Bavarian Empire. " Despite the loss of its
sovereign powers, the German Estate of Princes
still remains the loftiest nobility in the world; its
sons occupy nearly all the thrones of Europe; all
the world over, the usage of the royal Courts is in
accordance with the German princely customs.
In this distinguished circle the Emperor moves,
not as of old endowed with the dignity of a feudal
suzerain, but in the modest function of primus inter
pares.
