The Agreement Assembly of June 15

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Author(s) Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Written 17 June 1848


MIA-bannière.gif
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 7, p. 89;
Written: on June 17, 1848;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 18, June 18, 1848.
Collection(s): Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Keywords : Constitution, Germany, Revolutions of 1848

The agreement debates (Vereinbarungsdebatten) was the name given by Marx and Engels to the debates in the Prussian National Assembly, which met in Berlin in May 1848 to draft a Constitution “by agreement with the Crown” according to the formula proposed by the Hansemann-Camphausen Government. Marx and Engels labelled the Berlin Assembly, which adopted this formula and thereby rejected the principle of popular sovereignty, the “Agreement Assembly” and its deputies “the agreers”.

Cologne, June 17. We told you a few days ago: you deny the existence of the revolution. It will prove its existence by a second revolution.

The events of June 14 are merely the first harbinger of this second revolution and already the Camphausen Government is in full dissolution. By placing itself under the protection of the people of Berlin, the Agreement Assembly has decreed a vote of confidence in them. [1] This act is a belated recognition of the March fighters. The Assembly has taken out of the hands of the Ministers the task of drawing up a Constitution and is seeking “agreement” with the people by appointing a committee which will examine all petitions and resolutions relating to the Constitution. This is a belated annulment of its declaration of incompetence. The Assembly promises to begin its constitutional work by a deed: the abolition of the very basis of the old system, namely of the feudal obligations with which the land is burdened. This promises to become another night of August 4.[2]

In a word: on June 15 the Agreement Assembly repudiated its own past just as on June 9 it had repudiated the people’s past. It has experienced its March 21.[3]

The Bastille, however, has not yet been stormed.

But from the East an apostle of revolution is approaching impetuously and irresistibly. He is already standing at the gates of Thorn. It is the Tsar. The Tsar will save the German revolution by centralising it.

  1. ↑ Influenced by the revolutionary action of the working people of Berlin, the Prussian National Assembly adopted a resolution of June 15, 1848, which declared that the Assembly “does not need the protection of the armed forces but instead places itself under the protection of the people of Berlin
  2. ↑ During the night of August 4, 1789, the French Constituent Assembly, under the impact of the growing peasant unrest, announced the abrogation of a number of feudal obligations which had already been abolished by the insurgent peasants
  3. ↑ On March 21, 1848, Frederick William IV, frightened by the barricade fighting in Berlin, issued an appeal “To My People, and the German Nation” in which he promised to set up a representative institution based on the estate principle, and to introduce a Constitution, ministerial responsibility, public trials, juries etc
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