that the final crisis was impending, that the cause of freedom required the presence of all her champions. In great haste they left us. I still see before me the scene of our parting. When, with a last hand-clasp, we called out, “Auf Wiedersehen!” one of them answered with a questioning inflection: “Auf Wiedersehen? we go to battle from here—look at the lists of the fallen, perhaps you will there find our names!” It was the “Morituri salutamus” spoken in the first freshness of youth. Soon after came the terrible October fights in Vienna in which the blood of the Academic Legion flowed in streams.
Such was the spirit of a great part of the German youth of 1848. But we are asked: Were there not many fantastic vagaries indulged in? Were there not many wild blunders made and much attempted that was foolish and unattainable? Certainly. But many of the things that were then aspired to have since been realized and others should and will be realized in the course of time. The so-called “Forty-eighters” were striving principally for the realization of two great ideals: national unity and representative government. The great union of Germany has been achieved and it may be confidently predicted that the continuance of the united German Empire will be all the more firmly assured the more popular and free the form of its government. The more arbitrary the supreme power, the more dangerous will anti-nationalism become. The more popular the administration of state affairs the more patriotic will be the people and the more patriotic the people the stronger and safer the Empire. The fact that the German nation now represents a free and proud people united by a feeling of patriotism in which it rejoices, and not merely an alliance of princes, is the surest guarantee of its permanence. May the powers that be in Germany always keep in mind this fact.
The youth inspired by the spirit of '48 fought honestly
