Conservatives, ridiculed this impotent Assembly in every sitting, and they suffered it. And when William Wolff,[1] a Silesian deputy, and one of the editors of the New Rhenish Gazette, called upon them to outlaw the Lieutenant of the Empire—who was, he justly said, nothing but the first and greatest traitor to the Empire—he was hooted down by the unanimous and virtuous indignation of those Democratic Revolutionists! In short, they went on talking, protesting, proclaiming, pronouncing, but never had the courage or the sense to act; while the hostile troops of the Governments drew nearer and nearer, and their own Executive, the Lieutenant of the Empire, was busily plotting with the German princes their speedy destruction. Thus even the last vestige of consideration was lost to this contemptible Assembly; the insurgents who had
- ↑ The “Wolff” here alluded to is Wilhelm Wolff, the beloved friend of Marx and Engels, who—to distinguish him from the many other “Wolffs” in the movement at this period—was known to his intimates as “Lupus.” It is to this Silesion peasant that Marx dedicated the first volume of “Capital.”
“Dedicated
To My Never-To-Be-Forgotten Friend
The Brave, True, Noble Fighter In The Van-Guard
Of The Proletariat,
WILHELM WOLFF.Born at Tornau, June 21st, 1809. Died in exile at Manchester, 9th May, 1864.”
