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Benefits to be expected—Obstacles to be overcome. 259

mit of being made the stem whereon a united Government may be grafted. Till 1806 Germany was at least nominally an empire. The extinction of Charlemagne's family, and the substitution of an elective emperor had, it is true, favoured the early development of territorial sovereignties. Long before the Prussian monarch assumed the title of king, the suzerainté of the emperor over the more powerful families was little more than a name. But it at least imparted a uniformity to the institutions of the various States favourable to their re-combination. The ambition of Prussia and Austria, and still more perhaps of the parvenu kinglings of the Confederation of the Rhine, prevented the amalgamation of Germany into one State, as was contemplated by Von Stein and other high-minded patriots of 1813; but the imperfect German Confederation, and its feeble Diet in Frankfurt, at least preserved the tradition of the empire. And now the Central Government, by the express declarations of the German sovereigns, succeeds to the authority of the Diet, and is to receive extended powers. It finds a Zollverein already existing over great part of Germany, of which it is the most natural administrator. It finds the first steps taken towards the establishment of a uniform post-office system, of which it, too, will be the natural administrator. The necessity of a uniform commercial code for Germany is proclaimed aloud, and the draft of an exchange law has been promulgated and generally approved : one commercial code for Germany implies one supreme court at least for appeals, and here is another instrument of central power.

Material wants, national sentiment, fragmentary institutions, admitting of further development and combination—all are in favour of the permanence and growth of the central power. The obstacles in the way of its consolidation are:-the personal ambition of sovereigns; the numerous organized armies of the more important States; the interests of the bureaucracies which swarm in Germany; and the aristocracy who turn the vanity of monarchs and the pageantry and profit of civil and military employment alike to their advantage. But the power of the aristocracy has been effectually broken in Germany. Many old families have died out. Von Stein mentions one province in which the imperial equestrian families who about the year 1700 were 140 in number, had dwindled away to four in 1825. The beggared condition of the great Austrian magnates has already been alluded to. A large amount of landed property-partly by the extinction of noble families, partly by the secularisation and sale of Church lands, and the sale of Crown domains-has passed to the bourgeoisie. Manufacturing and mercantile wealth has of late years rapidly increased in Germany. The sovereigns are

effectually checked within their own territories by the rights they have conceded to elective legislatures. And where both kings and nobles are poor, neither armies nor civil officials are implicitly to be relied upon.

To all human appearance, a central constitutional Government is a necessity of the time and country. And upon this more than on any other consideration we are disposed to rely in the attempt to conjecture the future course and results of the German revolution. Of the men who have taken a prominent part in the convulsion it is too early to pronounce a decided opinion. Von Gagern has displayed a rare talent for directing the discussions of a popular assembly: Lichnowski (the early lost) on the conservative side, and Venedey on the liberal, with many others, have displayed undoubted aptitude for debate and business. And what is of still more importance, this impromptu assembly collected from all parts of Germany, composed of men for the most part new to political business, has shown a readiness to conform to the rules of a legislative assembly, a diffidence in its own judgments, and withal a degree of courage that could scarcely have been anticipated. Discussions of the most heterogeneous nature, yet of the most urgent importance, cannot fail to force themselves upon this inexperienced bodyforeign relations, commercial policy, the conflicting claims of the privileged and popular classes, not impossibly ecclesiastical reforms. It is easy to foresee many absurd controversies fiercely urged, and many impolitic measures rashly adopted. But the ease with which the red republicans of Germany have been suppressed during the paralysis of all government, and the general character of the German sovereigns, afford grounds for hope that time will be given to clear up erroneous conceptions, and retract false steps. The condition of neighbouring States is also favourable to the prosecution of the important experiment now making in Germany.

On the whole the balance of probabilities appears to incline to the opinion that the German revolution is a fait accompli; that the central power with its national assembly is in the language of English journalism-" a great fact."

THE

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.

FEBRUARY, 1849.

ART. I.-1. Trois Mois au Pouvoir. Par M. de LAMARTINE. Paris, 1848.

2. Memoirs of Citizen Caussidière, Ex-Prefect of Police and Representative of the People. 2 vols. London, 1848.

3. Histoire des Ateliers Nationaux.

Paris, 1848.

Par EMILE THOMAS.

Par LOUIS

4. La Révolution de Février au Luxembourg.

BLANC. Paris, 1848.

5. Qu'est-ce que la Propriété, ou, Recherches sur le Principe du Droit et du Gouvernement. Par P. J. PROUDHON. Première édition, Paris, 1840; Nouvelle édition, Paris, 1848.

6. Le Droit au Travail à l'Assemblée Nationale, Recueil Complet de tous les Discours prononcés dans cette Mémorable Discussion; avec une Introduction et des Notes. Par M. JOSEPH GARNIER. Paris, 1848.

7. De la Propriété. Par M. A. THIERS. Edition augmentée. Paris, 1848.

8. Le Socialisme; Droit au Travail, Réponse à M. Thiers. Par LOUIS BLANC. Paris, 1848.

9. Lettres sur l'organization du Travail; ou Etudes sur les Principales Causes de la Misère. Par MICHEL CHEVALIER.

Paris, 1848.

10. Jérome Paturot à la Recherche de la Meilleure des Républiques. Par LOUIS REYBAUD. Paris, 1848.

At the moment that the dynasty of Louis-Philippe was overthrown, the sovereignty of France fell into the hands of the people of Paris. What use they were to make of the opportunity, what character they were to give to the Revolution that they had just effected, depended on the collective tenor at that

VOL. X. NO. XX.

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moment of their political prepossessions and wishes. What those prepossessions and wishes were, however, it has required subsequent events to make clear.

from

One thing, indeed, was decided from the very beginning. France was to be a Republic. Abolishing royalty, and accounting the events of the preceding fifty years as a mere interruption, in part splendid and in part disastrous, of the great career of self-government that had been begun in 1792, the French people were now to resume that career in a new spirit, and under better auspices. So much may be said to have been agreed upon the first; it was virtually settled by the people in the streets, and if there were any dissentients, they were obliged to hide themselves. Another point also may be said to have been settled at the same time; namely, that the Republic thus revived was to be a Republic based on universal suffrage. To stop at a restricted system of suffrage, such as satisfied the men of the first Revolution, was doubtless impossible. At all events the attempt was not made.

A Republic, then, and a Republic based on universal suffrage, such was the lowest result that the people would accept from the Revolution of February. To this all classes were obliged to make up their minds, Louis-Philippists and Legitimists, Politicians and Bourgeoisie; and all that the more moderate spirits of the country could hope was, that by uniting their efforts they might be able to arrest the movement at this stage, and prevent it from going any farther.

To English readers, accustomed to regard a Republic, and, above all, a Republic based on universal suffrage, as a condition of things beyond which nothing else exists to be either desired or dreaded, these words "any farther" may appear strange. But when it is considered that the word Republic is only the name for a particular method of electing the governors of a country, and that it implies nothing as to the set of principles that shall prevail in the Government, except indeed a certain conformity at all times to the will of the majority, this wonder will vanish, and it will be seen how among Republicans themselves there may be differences of moderate and extreme. One class of persons, for example, may desire a Republic as an end, and for its own sake, that is from a mere general conviction that this is the likeliest form of Government to secure the prosperity of

nation; another class of persons may desire it rather as a means, in other words, from a conviction that, if this form of Government were established, then certain favourite theories that they are obliged in the meantime to keep in reserve, might be put in practice. It was precisely so in Paris on the 24th of February last. The effective Revolutionists of that day were

Political Republicans and Social Republicans.

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not a single compact body feeling together and moving together; they were a great straggling multitude, of which one battalion marched far in advance of the rest. One portion of them desired a Republic because they believed it would put an end to the corruption that existed, and secure better government for the future; but many desired it more expressly because they had predetermined in their own minds certain things that they would do when they had got it.

Of the moderate Republican party, desiring the Republic for its own sake, or at least for the sake of the general prospect of good that it held out, the natural leaders were Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and other members of the small radical section in the old Chamber of Deputies. Their chief organ out of doors was the National newspaper, edited by Marrast. To them was attached the generous and high-souled Lamartine. If not a Republican before in the precise sense in which they had been Republicans, he had at least had democratic visions of his own; he had fought the battle of reform along with them, and had stood boldly when Barrot had flinched; and now that the hour of the Republic was come, he had been the first to close with it and lend it his voice.

Such was the Moderate Republican Party, the recognised and traditional Republicans of France, the successors and admirers of Armand Carrel, called from the position of a small minority of Parliamentary Radicals, to a supreme place in the eyes of the nation. To indicate the nature of their prepossessions and views, they may be called the Political Republicans, that is, the Republicans who having all along directed their efforts to the establishment of a Republic as an end, were willing, now that the end was gained, to wait for the response of the people. Very different from these were the Republicans that remain to be described. Confident that the Republic would come, but weary of waiting for it, they had turned their attention, in the meantime, by way of preparation, to certain deep social questions, the settlement of which, they believed, would form the first and principal business of the Republic whenever it should arrive. In the preliminary study of these questions, in the search beforehand for solutions or even approximate solutions to some of them, they were already, they believed, serving the future Republic, at the same time that they were procuring intellectual pleasure for themselves. "Let others," they said, "strive in the political arena to bring in the Republic; we will assist them when it is necessary to do so, but meanwhile we will rehearse our parts in an imaginary Republic of our own." These were the Social, or the Social and Democratic Republicans, that is, the Republicans who, in virtue of the zeal with which they had studied certain social changes that they thought would take place

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