CHAP. XXIII. them a triumph to the completeness of which European history scarcely supplies a parallel. Never before for centuries, not even in the War of Liberation of 1814, had the nation felt and acted so completely as one. All saw that the time had now come to give this practically realized unity its formal political expression; nor was there a doubt as to what that form should be. The imperial name under which Germany had won her first glories in the great days of the Middle Ages, was that to which the sentiment of the nation turned; and it spared the susceptibilities of the sovereigns whose adherence to the national cause had given them a better claim on the regard of their subjects than most of them had before possessed. Dec. 19, 1870. By a strange caprice of fate, it was in a hall of the palace at Versailles, which the arch-enemy of Germany had reared, that the first of the German potentates offered to the king of Prussia, in the name of princes and peoples, that imperial crown which his brother had refused in 1849. On the 18th of January following, sixty-five years after the dissolution of the old Empire, King William was proclaimed Emperor, and Germany became again a single state in the eyes of Europe. CHAPTER XXIV THE NEW GERMAN EMPIRE - German THE new Empire now established in Germany is neither CHAP. so new a creation nor so distinctly a unified State as its XXIV. name might seem to convey. It is rather to be described Constitution as an extension of the North German Confederation under of the new the form of a federal monarchy, whose peculiar constitu- Empire. tion makes it unlike all other monarchies and all other federations. It consists of twenty-five States of all sizes, from Prussia with a population of 33,000,000 down to Schaumburg-Lippe with a population of 42,000. Three of its members Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg-are free cities, survivors of the ancient Hanseatic League. The rest are hereditary monarchies, governed by sovereigns who are, according to the constitution of each particular State, more or less restrained or advised by legislatures of a more or less representative character. As these twenty-five States are very unequal in size and in power, so also do they differ in their relations to the Empire as a whole, for Prussia, by far the greatest, practically predominates over all the rest, while a few of the larger Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg - stand in a privileged position. constitution The Constitution of the Empire is best understood when A developeit is regarded as a developement of the Germanic Con- ment of the federation which was erected in 1815, upon the ruins of the ancient Empire. It has been evolved out of that League of States (Staatenbund) into a federal State (Bundesstaat) of the North German Confederation. CHAP. Relation of the federal authority to the several States. by three stages. The first was the exclusion of Austria and formation of the North German Confederation under the presidency of Prussia in 1866. The second was the conclusion of a series of military treaties between the North German Confederation and the South German States in 1866-1867. The third was the formal union of the North and South German States, under the name of an Empire, in 1871. Of these three steps towards unity the last seems the most imposing and certainly made the greatest impression upon the world at large. But the two former were really more important, for in 1866 a national popular assembly was created for all North Germany, and immediately thereafter a tie of immense practical importance was formed between all the German States. Thus the existing Constitution, though it dates from April 16, 1871 some important amendments were made in 1873 and 1888 is in its essential features that which was enacted in 1866. Its details are too numerous and intricate to be here set forth, but the general character of the federal scheme and of the several organs of government may be briefly summarized. In every federation the critical point is the distribution of powers between the central or federal authority, and those local authorities which are the component members of the united body. Here the central or federal (ie. imperial) authority controls the army and navy, foreign relations, railways, main roads and canals, posts and telegraphs, coinage, weights and measures, copyrights and patents, and legislation upon nearly the whole field of civil and criminal law, together with the regulation of the press and of associations, and of imperial finance, including of course the customs tariff which is one and the same for all Germany. Bavaria, however, retains the management of her own railways, and both she and Saxony and Würtemberg enjoy certain other special exemptions or CHAP. privileges. But though comparatively little legislative XXIV. power is left to the States, administration remains almost entirely in their hands, and it is they who appoint and dismiss nearly all the executive officials, a concession to their rulers which may be deemed illogical, but which the political circumstances of the country prescribed. Judicial power is in so far a federal (imperial) matter, that the greater part of the law which the Courts administer (including the law of procedure) is contained in the imperial statute-books. But the judges are everywhere appointed by the State and act under its authority, although the uniform interpretation of such parts of the law as rest on imperial legislation is secured by the existence of a Supreme Court of Appeal (Reichsgericht), which sits at Leipzig. It will thus be seen that this federal Empire is for legisla- Comparison tive purposes more fully unified than the other four great federations of modern times the United States, Switzerland, Canada, and Australia - since in all these State legislatures retain wider powers than do the State legislatures of Germany. But Germany is less unified for the purposes of administration, both executive and judicial, than are those four communities, and her constitution admits, as regards the amount of rights left to the several component States, differences between the greater and the lesser altogether opposed to that principle of equality which those federations have deemed essential to their peace and stability." ■ There is no such system of federal Courts through the country as exists in the United States. bOne part of the Empire is not included in any State. This is the territory of Alsace-Lorraine (Elsass-Lothringen) taken from France in 1871. It is organized as an 'imperial district' (Reichsland) under a governor appointed by the Emperor, sends fifteen members to the Assembly (Reichstag) and four delegates (without power of voting) to the federal Council. with other modern federations. СНАР. Structure of government. The Emperor. The legisla ture. The federal Council (Bundes rath). The organization of the central or federal government of the German Empire is not less exceptional than is the structure of its federal system. The head of the executive is the Emperor. His office is not elective, as in the days of the Holy Empire, but hereditary, being indissolubly attached to the office of king of Prussia; and the imperial title therefore descends according to the family law of succession of the house of Hohenzollern. Outside his Prussian dominions, the Emperor enjoys little power in civil matters. He has no veto on legislation, though (as will presently appear) he has another means of controlling it. He appoints very few civil officials. His importance in the scheme of government depends on the fact that he is commander-in-chief of the army and navy, that he has the conduct of foreign affairs (action taken in which is, however, communicated to the federal Council), and that as Prussian king he exercises a predominant influence in the federal Council (Bundesrath) which constitutes one House of the imperial legislature. There is no imperial Cabinet, but the Chancellor of the Empire, who is usually also Prime Minister of Prussia, discharges, with the assistance of several secretaries of State, the function of chief minister for all imperial affairs. He presides in the federal Council and has the right, which he constantly exercises, of speaking in the other House. But he is responsible to his imperial master only and not to the representatives of the people. The imperial legislature is also a peculiar creation, for it consists of two chambers more dissimilar in origin and functions than are the two Houses of other federations. One chamber, the federal Council (Bundesrath), is really a prolongation of the old Diet of the Holy Empire, which, beginning as a sort of semi-popular assembly in Carolingian times, had passed through many phases before it |