Cologne Citizens' Petition for the Continuance of the Rheinische Zeitung

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This petition was compiled on January 30, 1843, and illegally circulated among die inhabitants of Cologne. By February 18 it had been signed by 911 citizens. The petition was rejected on March 31, 1843.

Similar petitions requesting the lifting of the ban on the Rheinische Zeitung were addressed to the King of Prussia from Aachen, Barmen, Wesel, Düsseldorf and a number of other towns. However, all steps taken in defence of the newspaper were fruitless.

Added in a different handwriting at the top of the page: "To Minister of State, Count von Arnim. Berlin, March 5, 1843.

Cologne, February 1843

Most excellent, most powerful King,

Most gracious King and Lord,

Scarcely a year has elapsed since Your Majesty by Your memorable, royal, free decision released the press from the oppressive shackles in which it had been laid by unfortunate circumstances. Every citizen inspired by a genuine feeling of freedom and patriotism looked with redoubled confidence to the present and the immediate future, in which public opinion with its manifold convictions and deep-seated contradictions has acquired appropriate organs of the press, and by means of ever more thorough development and ever-renewed justification of its own content will refine itself until it reaches that purity, clarity and resoluteness by which it offers the richest, surest and most vivifying source of national legislation. The Rhinelander in particular, Your Majesty, was filled with the most noble joy when he saw that free, public utterance — whose high value and inner worth he had come to appreciate so thoroughly in his judicial system—had at least been given an opening also in other areas of state life, where the need for it is greatest, in the sphere of political conviction, which is the most essential element of state life, and in which morality is of the highest significance. That confidence and this joy were, we say frankly, most painfully affected by the news of the measures decided upon against the Rheinische Zeitung. Participating directly in the upsurge of public life evoked by Your Majesty’s accession to the throne, that newspaper developed its conception of state affairs at all events with uncompromising consistency, and indeed was not seldom bluntly outspoken. One may favour the political views of this newspaper, one may, like many of the undersigned, not share them, one may indeed be definitely hostile to them, in any case, the true friend of an efficient and free state life must sincerely regret the blow that has befallen this newspaper. By the suppression of this one newspaper alone, the entire press of the

Fatherland is deprived of that independence which, as it is the foundation of all moral relationships, is also absolutely essential for a principled discussion of specific state affairs, and without which neither outstanding talent nor firm character can be applied to political literature.

The undersigned citizens of Cologne, in whose midst the threatened newspaper found its origin, feel themselves above all obliged and impelled to express frankly to Your Majesty, whom they have learnt to honour as the mightiest protector of free speech, their feeling of pain at the decreed suppression and to submit before the steps of the throne the most humble request: That Your Majesty will most graciously order that the measures projected against the Rheinische Zeitung by the high censorship authorities on January 21 of this year shall be annulled and that this newspaper shall continue to exist without any restriction of the freedom hitherto accorded to our domestic press in general by Your Majesty yourself.

We remain most humble and obedient subjects of Your Majesty, loyal citizens of Cologne

[signatures follow]