A Prussian Kick for the Frankfurt Assembly

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Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 May 1849


MIA-banniĂšre.gif
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 9, p. 377;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 287, May 2, 1849.
Collection(s): Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Keywords : Counter-Revolution, Germany, Parliament

Cologne, May 1. Another new item in the history of the Prussian counter-revolution. The King gives the Frankfurt Assembly a determined kick and contemptuously casts in its face the proffered gold-tinsel crown of an imaginary empire.[1]

If at the right time the Frankfurt Assembly had acted with energy, it could now order the arrest of this Hohenzollern, who is filled with insolence, and commit him to the Assize Court for “insult to the National Assembly” (Law of September 1848, published also in Prussia[2]). As yet there exists no “imperial” law that declares the individual sovereigns exempt also from responsibility in regard to the “empire”; and the imperial irresponsibility has been rejected by the Hohenzollern.

The new Prussian “imperial” Note of April 28 softens the “imperial” kick by a few kind observations about the so-called German imperial Constitution. This innocent botch-work is depicted in the Note as a supreme example of all that is bad and as an extreme product of revolution and secret republicanism “exceeding all bounds”.

St. Paul’s Church as a robbers’ cave of carbonari! [3] Welcker and Gagern as secret republicans, “Möros with a dagger under his cloak"! Bassermann, the man who sees spectres, himself turned into one of the “Bassermannic characters"[4]. That, of course, is flattering for the worthy Frankfurt deputies after all the scorn with which they have been treated by the people, after all the curses heaped on them by the defeated barricade fighters of Frankfurt and Vienna, and there are people of all shades of opinion, right down to Herr Vogt, who are capable of really believing such nonsense.

The Prussian Note is the last threat to the Frankfurt Assembly even before it is actually dispersed. Once more the stubborn Hohenzollern proffers his hand for a “reconciliation”. And, in point of fact, after the Assembly has gone so far it could truly make one little step further and become completely a tool of Prussia.

Meanwhile, however, a section of the people, and especially the peasantry and the lower middle class of the small south German states, cling to the Assembly and to the so-called imperial Constitution. The army is favourably disposed towards the imperial Constitution. The people regard every step, however small, towards the unification of Germany as a step towards abolition of the petty sovereigns and liberation from the oppressive burden of taxation. The hatred of Prussia, too, plays a part here. The Swabians even made a revolution in support of the so-called imperial Constitution[5]; it was, of course, a storm in a teacup, but all the same it was something.

Hence, if the worthy Frankfurt deputies possessed the slightest degree of courage, it would not be possible to disperse the Frankfurt Assembly without the use of force. They now have a last opportunity of atoning at least for a small part of the grievous sins they have committed. If simultaneously with the victories of the Hungarians, the break-up of Austria, and the fury of the people in Prussia at the Hohenzollern-Radowitz-Manteuffel betrayals, Frankfurt and South Germany were to rise up openly in defence of the imperial Constitution, they could form a temporary centre for a new revolutionary uprising based on Hungary.

But then the worthy deputies would not have to shrink from proclaiming civil war either and, in the extreme case, if it comes to making a decision, they would have to prefer a united and indivisible German republic to a restoration of the German Federal Diet.[6]

But anyone who supposes the Frankfurters capable of that is greatly mistaken. These gentlemen will make a little noise, offer a little resistance, enough to satisfy at least to some extent the requirements of decency, and then they will agree to everything that the stubborn Hohenzollern dictates to them. Here and there, perhaps, the people will erect barricades and — will be betrayed as on September 18.[7]

That would be the end of the famous imperial bombastic dramatical performance, if it depended on the Frankfurt gentlemen.

But perhaps the Hungarian hussars, the Polish Uhlans, and the Viennese proletarians will have a word to say, and then matters can nevertheless take a different turn.

  1. ↑ After the dissolution of the Second Chamber, the Prussian Government published a Note of April 281 1849 signed by Prime Minister Brandenburg and addressed to the Frankfurt National Assembly and the German governments. The Note contained Frederick William IV’s final refusal to accept the imperial crown proffered by the Assembly, motivated by the fact that the revolutionary origin and’ contents of the imperial Constitution made it unacceptable to the King. At the same time, the Note stressed that the Prussian King certainly did not refuse to fulfil the mission of uniting the German lands, in collaboration with other German monarchs. It was suggested that the Frankfurt Assembly should give up the imperial Constitution and promote these dynastic plans. Simultaneously with this Note, the Prussian Government stepped up military preparations in order to put down the growing popular movement in Germany for the introduction of the imperial Constitution
  2. ↑ In September, the Frankfurt National Assembly discussed the Law on the Protection of the Constituent imperial Assembly and the Officials of the Central Authority (“Gesetz, bettreffend den Schutz der constituirenden Nationalversammlung und der Beamten der Centralgewalt!') and adopted it on October 10, 1848. Article V read: “Public insult to the Imperial Assembly, including that made outside its sittings, is to be punished by imprisonment of up to two years. “This law was also published in Prussia in Stenographischer Bericht ĂŒber die Verhandlungen der deutschen constituirenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main
  3. ↑ St. Paul’s Church — The phrase "Imperial Assembly" refers to the German National Assembly which opened on May 18, 1848 in St. Paul's Church, in the free town of Frankfurt am Main. It was convened to effect the unification of the country and to draw up its Constitution. Among the deputies elected in various German states late in April and early in May were 122 government officials, 95 judges, 81 lawyers, 103 professors, 17 manufacturers and wholesale dealers, 15 physicians and 40 landowners. The liberal deputies, who were in the majority, turned the Assembly into a mere debating club. At the decisive moments of the revolution, the liberal majority in fact condoned the counter-revolution. When writing this and other articles on the Frankfurt National Assembly, Marx and Engels made use of the shorthand reports of its sittings which later appeared as a separate publication, Stenographischer Bericht ĂŒber die Verhandlungen der deutschen constituirenden Nationalversammlung zu Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, 1848-49.
    Carbonari — members of secret political societies in Italy and France in the first half of the nineteenth century. In Italy they fought for national independence, unification of the country and liberal constitutional reforms. In France their movement was primarily directed’ against the rule of the restored Bourbon dynasty (1815-30)
  4. ↑ In connection with the coup d'Ă©tat that began in Prussia in November 1848, the Frankfurt National Assembly sent a delegation to Berlin to mediate in the conflict between the Prussian Assembly and the Government. On his return to Frankfurt, Bassermann, a moderate liberal member of the delegation, announced to the Assembly that the Prussian Government had a good reason for taking decisive measures, because savage-looking characters were loafing about in the streets of Berlin as they usually did on the eve of anarchist demonstrations. Hence the ironical expression “Bassermannic characters
  5. ↑ Engels had in mind revolutionary disturbances among the broad masses in the Bavarian Palatinate caused by the declaration made by the Bavarian King Maximilian II and his Cabinet on April 23, 1849. In it they rejected the imperial Constitution and proclaimed loyalty to the former particularism of small states. The movement in the Palatinate soon led to a revolutionary upheaval there, the Palatinate’s separation from Bavaria and the formation of a local provisional government
  6. ↑ This refers to the central body of the German Confederation which consisted of representatives from the German states. Though it had no real power, it was nevertheless a vehicle for feudal and monarchist reaction. After the March 1848 revolution in Germany, Right-wing circles tried in vain to revive the Federal Diet and use it to undermine the principle of popular sovereignty and prevent the democratic unification of Germany
  7. ↑ On September 18, 1848 a popular uprising broke out in Frankfurt am Main against the Frankfurt National Assembly’s ratification of the armistice with Denmark concluded in Malmö. The wavering and indecision of the Assembly’s Left wing helped defeat the uprising
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