THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
balance of power in Europe, nothing issued for the German nation but a treaty of alliance between German states, the famous “Deutsche Bund,” the organ of which was to be the “Bundestag”; and this organ was to be composed of the representatives of the various German kings and princes, without any vestige of a representation of the people. There was no mention of any guarantee of civic rights, of a popular vote, of a free press, of the freedom of assembly, of a trial by jury. On the contrary, the “Bundestag,” impotent as an organ of the German nation in its relations to the outside world, developed itself only as a mutual insurance society of despotic rulers—as a central police board for the suppression of all national and liberal movements. The king of Prussia, Frederick William III., the same who had made the promises to the people contained in the proclamation of Kalisch, had probably in the days of distress and of national uprising honestly meant to do what he promised. But his mind was narrow and easily disposed to consider autocratic authority on his part as necessary for the well-being of the world. Every effort among the people in favor of free institutions of government appeared to him as an attack on that absolute authority, and therefore as a revolutionary transgression; and the mere reminder on the part of the people of his own promises made to them in 1813 was resented by him as an arrogant self-assertion of subjects, and as such to be repelled. Thus he became, perhaps unconsciously, the mere tool of Prince Metternich, the evil genius of Germany. The outcome was a period of stupid reaction, a period of conferences of ministers for the concoction of despotic measures, of cruel persecutions of patriotic men whom they called demagogues, of barbarous press-gagging, of brutal police excesses. In some of the small German states some advance was made toward liberal institutions,
[ 105 ]
