THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
to obey the national constitution, and in case of necessity to defend that constitution by independent action against all attacks by force. With this, of course, Archduke Johann, who had sent him, was not pleased.
That prince had originally become distasteful to the Austrian court by marrying a young woman who did not belong to the nobility, and by uttering now and then a liberal sentiment. This had put him in the odor of liberalism with the great public, and to this circumstance he owed his election to the office of regent of the empire in 1848. It was not unnatural at all that this election created in him the desire to obtain for himself the imperial crown. When the king of Prussia was elected emperor the archduke was greatly disappointed, and he showed his displeasure at once by offering to the national parliament his resignation as regent of the empire. He permitted himself, however, to be persuaded to withdraw that resignation for the time being, and he did this all the more willingly as he received from the Austrian court the suggestion that he should not abandon so important an office while it existed, because through it he might do very important service to the dynastic interest of Austria. That dynastic interest of Austria was, at the time, to prevent by every means the elevation of the king of Prussia to the dignity of German emperor; and also not to permit any constitution of the German empire which did not comprise the whole of Austria, including its Hungarian and Slavic populations, and in which Austria did not occupy the leading place. The national constitution, which was actually adopted by the Frankfurt parliament, making Prussia the leading power, was therefore to the Austrian court an abomination. The liberalism of the Archduke Johann may originally have been ever so genuine—certain it is that he had the monarchical interest in general, and the
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