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University of California, Berkeley
An Intellectual History of Republicanism in Germany 1787-1849The 1848/49 March Revolutions made applicable to contemporary revolutions
Jason Michael FaussSenior Honors Thesis
Dr. Jeroen DewulfApril 15, 2016
1
Outline
I. Historical Introduction
II. Topic Relevance and Thesis
III. Description of Research and Methodology
IV. Literature Review
A. Domestic Fragmentation
B. International Politics
C. Strength of Monarchy
V. Background on Republicanism
VI. Intellectual History
A. 1787-1803—Rejected Jacobinism
B. 1803-1815—Napoleonic Era
C. 1815-1830—Budding Political Culture in a Rigidly Monarchistic Environment
D. 1830-1840—Height of Republican Favoritism
E. 1840-1849—The Shift to an Illiberal Republicanism and Moderate Revolution
VII. Concluding Remarks With an Extended Analysis and Application
VIII. Bibliography
2
I. Historical Introduction
With the storming of the Bastille and beheading of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie
Antoinette, the long-standing monarchy in France was violently overturned. Europe gazed in awe
at this momentous revolution that would eventually be considered one of the most important
events in history. When the French monarchy was dissolved, Jacobinism and pro-democratic
fervor permeated the borders of the German confederation. For half a century, this fervor
compounded itself and eventually lead to the first large-scale revolt in Vienna on March 13,
1848. The 39 Confederate German states seemed posed to have their democratic moment. Eric
Brose describes this unique moment in his historiography Germany History 1789-1871 (1997)
writing that “not since the Peasant Wars of the early 1500s had such a wave of violence swept
across rural Germany.”1 The fires and revolts that spread across 1848 Germany were a molten
discharge that escalated to a fusillade, a salvo, a torrential downpour of acrimony that only
centuries of feudalistic oppression could explain. After just three months, the revolutionaries
selected 812 delegates to convene The Frankfurter Parliament whose primary goal was to unify
Germany and establish a republic.
An amalgamation of professionals such as lawyers, artisans, and public servants spent
months hammering out their grievances and plans for a unified republic. On March 28, 1849 the
national assembly passed their first draft of the constitution—which was to unite Germany as a
constitutional monarchy—and submitted it to King William IV of Prussia whom the delegates
designated as their monarch. King William IV, however, dismissed the constitution saying that
he would never “accept a crown from the gutter.”2 A few days after the King’s rejection, the 1 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Page 24. Print.2 Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 490.
3
Parliament was dismissed and the entire democratic movement died. How could this revolution
with so much potential and power dissolve so quickly?
I. Topic Relevance and Thesis
Republicanism is a topic that was catapulted to the forefront of historical and political
scholarship after the widespread revolutions in 19th century Europe. Most republican scholarship
bases its research and conclusions on the American or French revolutions which were successful
in overthrowing their aristocratic oppressors. The German March Revolutions have not
contributed very much to the republican field because The Forty-Eighters (revolutionaries) were
unable to dismantle the aristocracy and unify the German confederation. In fact, the 1848/49
March Revolutions are often referred to as failed.
When analyzing democratic revolutions that failed to overthrow an autocratic or
dictatorial regime it is easy to conclude that the revolutionaries failed due to a lack of resources
or strength. Allied countries can be blamed for not joining in or funding revolutionary wartime
capabilities, the government could be qualified as too powerful to fall, and the general population
can be faulted for feebly hiding behind their doors. Though these are all valid claims pertaining
to the might and means of the revolutionary group, they fail to encompass another equally
significant aspect: motive. Revolutions ought to be analyzed on a deeper, more personal level to
determine the degree of motive present amongst revolutionaries.
In this paper, I will argue that by 1849 the two most significant factors impacting the
outcome of the 1848/49 March Revolutions were 1. The revolution’s moderate approach and 2.
The German population’s desire to preserve the hereditary monarch. I will make this argument
4
by recounting Germany’s past by with republicanism at the center. It is for this reason that I have
entitled the sections following the literature review and background on republicanism an
intellectual history. Though it is not an intellectual history in the traditional sense, it is a history
of Germany’s developing political culture with regard to republicanism. Both republicanism and
19th century German history are rich fields of research with vast amounts of historiographies and
essays published. My research does not seek to reject historical narratives or challenge
republican theories. Rather, my project’s aim is to illuminate an example of a current major
world player that rejected traditional republicanism when many of its neighbors were adopting it.
The 19th century German case study is not the most popular amongst republican scholarship nor
is it a model applicable to contemporary states and revolutions.
Instead of simply listing the grievances of different revolutionary actors (peasant, artisan,
scholar, autocrat), I am seeking to discover crucial elements that are necessary to sustain a
revolution. Why was the initial motive of The Forty-Eighters not strong enough to edit the
Paulskirche Constitution or launch a second wave of revolution after King William IV dismissed
them? Did the French have something the Germans lacked? If deeper research on the 1848/49
March Revolutions can begin to answer what motivates people to take the risks required to
destroy existing monarchical structures of social and political authority, it can be used as an
applicable model to contemporary revolutions.
II. Description of Research and Methodology
5
My project’s primary approach is historical. After a careful analysis of the most prolific
historiographies I have written a narrative that presents a new perspective on Germany’s past by
putting republicanism at the center. I have deliberately chosen to recount Germany’s past with
regard to republicanism chronologically. This method allows us to see the ideology’s interplay
with art, scholarship, music, economics, literature, and political transitions. This essay does not
seek to be the most successful account of Germany’s art history or economic development.
Rather, I have taken bits and pieces of those who have in fact written the most successful
accounts of Germany’s artistic, economic, etc. development and woven them into my own
narrative of Germany’s past with regard to republicanism. Given the chronological structure of
my project, I have partitioned the intellectual history into 5 categories that encapsulate the
general political culture of the time. For each category, I offer a title that best summarizes the
most prominent event or trend at the time that impacted changing attitudes towards
republicanism. The five categories are:
A. 1787-1803—Rejected Jacobinism
B. 1803-1815—Napoleonic Era
C. 1815-1830—Budding Political Culture in a Rigidly Monarchistic Environment
D. 1830-1840—Height of Republican Favoritism
E. 1840-1849—The Shift to an Illiberal Republicanism and Moderate Revolution
III. Literature Review
6
The 1848/49 March Revolutions in the 39 German states is by far the most widely
discussed and disputed topic among 19th century German scholars and historians. The revolutions
were the manifestation of a long-time shift in German institutions, politics and ideology as well
as a piece of a larger, European republican portrait. Before beginning on a crystallization of the
secondary literature regarding this scholarship, it is important to note that the 1848/49 March
Revolutions cannot be simplified into categories of success and failure. A general consensus
among scholars is that the main actors—peasants, artisans, scholars, the aristocracy, and the
international community—interacted to produce a revolution but failed to accomplish two major
goals: 1. Dismantle the aristocratic government and 2. Unify the 39 confederate German states.
Most scholars, however, agree that the revolutions ultimately did more good than harm. Though
unable to dismantle the aristocracy and unify Germany, the demonstrations worked to mobilize a
large sector of the population, promote democratic discussion, and implement minimal legal
revisions. In order to understand why the 1848/49 March Revolutions failed to achieve what The
United States and France accomplished, a crystallization of the most prolific scholarship on this
topic is necessary.
Among the prodigious literature surrounding this topic, three explanations of the March
Revolutions’ inability to dismantle the aristocracy or unify Germany have emerged: 1. Domestic
Fragmentation 2. International politics and 3. Strength of the monarchy. As is the case with most
historical research, none of the aforementioned schools of thought exist in a vacuum; the three
arguments undoubtedly contain areas of overlap and cannot be considered mutually exclusive.
Though there is no general consensus about any one explanation impacting the outcome of the
March Revolutions, the domestic fragmentation argument is the most endorsed.
A. Domestic Fragmentation
7
The most prominent explanation for the revolution’s outcome pits domestic
fragmentation as the primary cause. Scholars in this camp argue that there was an irreconcilable
divide among all levels of the socioeconomic demography. John Breully writes in Austria,
Prussia and the Making of Germany: 1806-1871 (2011) that “even amongst those who wanted a
national state, there were insuperable divisions between Catholics and Protestants, democrats and
liberals, Austrians, Prussians and those from the ‘third Germany’, guildsmen and mobile
businessmen, landowners and small peasants”.3 The first fragmentation was between radical
scholars (progressives) and more moderate artisans (reactionaries). In The German Public Mind
in the Nineteenth Century (1975), Frederick Hertz writes that “the war was barely over when the
progressives and reactionaries clashed….their [progressives] plans for German unity did not
accord with the spirit of the German people.” 4 The scholars are referred to as the progressives
because they had a very liberal, and to some degree radical notion of how a unified German
government ought to function. Though the reactionaries (artisans) initially responded in revolt,
they did not share the more liberal views the progressives held. Thus, the revolution went awry
because the two demographics had very different goals for a post-revolutionary Germany.
Alvin Gouldner expands on this ideological divide in his essay Artisans and Intellectuals
in the German Revolution of 1848 (1983). Gouldner argues that artisans and scholars were “two
occupations alike in other ways that made both resentful of threats to their traditional status,”5
and were thus unified in their initial revolutionary spirit, however, after the dust settled, the
ideological divide manifested such that “the artisans saw the educated class as enemies and as
3 Breuilly, John. Austria, Prussia, and the Making of Germany, 1806-1871. Harlow, England: Longman/Pearson, 2011. 54. Print.
4 Hertz, Friedrich Otto, and Frank Eyck. The German Public Mind in the Nineteenth Century; a Social History of German Political Sentiments, Aspirations and Ideas. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975. Page 89. Print.
5 Gouldner, Alvin. "Artisans and Intellectuals in the German Revolution of 1848." Theory and Society 12.4 (1983): Page 522. Springer. Web.
8
hired ideologues for the free trade movement that, together with the factory system, was ruining
them. ‘Handicraftsmen regarded higher education with the same suspicion which they felt
toward great wealth,’ reports Hamerow.”6 Gouldner assertion is solidly voiced: artisans found
their livelihoods threatened by the radical scholars. Artisans were coming from a much more
practical perspective. If the revolution was fought and won in order to emancipate themselves
from autocratic rule and structural violence, it would only make sense to implement policies
directly benefitting their livelihoods such as greater freedoms in the marketplace. The European
Subsistence Crisis of 1845-507 also worked to moderate the artisans because heavy debt and job
loss due to depreciated potato output meant that the artisans had more to lose by revolting. The
potato blight affected all levels of society but left the lower and lower-middle classes the most
destitute; artisans living hand to mouth didn’t have time for lofty, republican ideals.
Edward Shorter details specific ideological misalignments when he states in his essay,
Middle Class Anxiety in the German Revolution of 1848 (1969) that “liberals advocated craft
freedom, a prospect which the local artisans dreaded; the liberals talked of “human rights” and
the “end of repressive government,” while at home their unhappy constituents could think only
of more severe administrative restrictions upon the migration and the immorality of the lower
classes.”8 [1969] The Artisan demographic had qualms with vague, theoretical discussions of
liberty and self-governance and increasingly viewed themselves as alienated by the scholarly
class. In fact, Breuilly takes the argument further writing that “the reaction against radical
movements turned the Confederation into an instrument of repression.”9 Breuilly argues that
6 IBID.7 Vanhaute, E., Richard Paping, and Cormac O Grada. The European Subsistence Crisis of 1845-1850: A
Comparative Perspective. Vol. IEHC 2006 Helsinki Session 123. Dublin: U College Dublin, Department of Economics, 2006. Web. <http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Vanhaute.pdf>.
8 Shorter, Edward. "Middle Class Anxiety in the German Revolution of 1848." Oxford Journals (1969): 26-28. Web. <http://jsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/3/189.full.pdf>.
9 Breuilly, John. "Pages 24, 28, 36, 49, 57." Austria, Prussia and the Making of Germany: 1806 - 1871. Harlow: Longman/Pearson, 2011. N. pag. Print.
9
after the initial violence, the radical scholars posed such a threat to artisans that they began to
view the scholars, not the aristocracy, as the repressive actors. James J. Sheehan further details
the degree of mistrust between the liberals and working class in his historiography German
History, 1770-1866 (1989). He writes that lower class and artisan mistrust of liberals was only
exacerbated by the fact that “liberals were never entirely sure about the boundaries of their own
movement, never confident that they knew who belonged and who did not”.10 Thus, not only
were the political and socioeconomic goals of the liberals different than those of the working
class—the liberals were ambivalent in goal-setting. This ambivalence is risky in a revolutionary
period and certainly a factor hindering the two groups from working together.
Without the muscle of the working class, the revolutions were an empty threat and
nothing more. Johannes Willms promotes this interpretation in Nationalismus ohne Nation:
Deutsche Geschichte 1789-1914 (1983) when he notes that “nur die Macht der Revolution
konnte die politische Reform vorwärtstreiben und zum Steig führen,”11 [1983] ‘Die Macht der
Revolution’ in 1848/49 were the peasants and artisans—those truly going into the streets and
violently revolting. The fire and fuel of political reform are burned from the ground up; ideas and
strategy alone do not suffice in achieving progressive change. Christopher Clark recalls in his
historiography Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (2006) that after the
Frankfurter Assembly submitted its newly drafted constitution, King Frederick Wilhelm IV of
Prussia rejected it on April 3, 1849 saying that he would not accept a, “crown from the gutter.”12
Quickly thereafter, however, the assembly splintered. Where was the fire that burned the
Hünsruck Forests in the Rhineland-Palatinate? Where was the muscle of the working class that
10 Sheehan, James J. German History 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. 598. Print.11 Willms, Johannes. "Der Scheitern Der Politischen Klasse." Nationalismus ohne Nation: Deutsche
Geschichte von 1789 Bis 1914. Düsseldorf: Claassen, 1983. Page 244. Print.12 Clark, Christopher (2006). Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 490.
10
turned over carts and broke feudal fences? To make matters even more complicated, ideological
fragmentation among domestic actors also occurred within the scholarly community, further
crippling the movement. Michael Sorensen argues in Young Hegelians Before and After 1848:
When Theory Meets Reality (2011) that students seeking to promote Hegel’s ideas such as Karl
Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Bruno Bauer were poorly received by the wider, more moderate
scholarly community. Bauer, for example, was dismissed from his post at Bonn University in
1842 for promulgating radical ideology. Young Hegelians and other more radical student
scholars were encouraged not to submit their dissertations to the university community knowing
that they would be poorly received.13 When the time came for the Frankfurter Assembly to meet
for its first session on May 18, 1848, the fragmentation was already so thick that little to no
artisans were represented and the scholars themselves were sharply divided on the ideological
trajectory of the movement. Fragmentation based on misaligned ideology significantly impacted
the outcome of the 1848/49 German March Revolutions.
An additional, more Marxist facet of the domestic fragmentation argument asserts that
class conflict was a significant driving force for the German peoples’ failure to establish a
republic post-1849. Shorter writes that “questions more social than political in nature agitated the
common people, especially the middle classes.”14 Shorter agrees that there was political
fragmentation as outlined in the previous paragraph, but also adds a social splintering akin to
class warfare. In The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (1962) Eric Hobsbawm details this
misalignment when he writes that “the revolution which broke out in the first months of 1848
was not a social revolution merely in the sense that it involved and mobilized all social classes. It
13 Sørensen, Michael Kuur. Young Hegelians before and after 1848: When Theory Meets Reality. Frankfurt Am Main U.a.: Lang, 2011. Chapter 2. Print.
14 Shorter, Edward. "Middle Class Anxiety in the German Revolution of 1848." Oxford Journals (1969): Page 25. Web. <http://jsh.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/3/189.full.pdf>.
11
was in the literal sense the rising of the laboring poor in the cities…when the dust settled on their
ruins, workers were seen to be standing on them, demanding not merely bread and employment,
but a new state and society.”15 Herein lies the fragmentation: the lowest classes started the
revolution, but after the dust settled the higher classes took over focused on the promotion of
their class’ welfare, threatening the livelihood of the artisans and poor.
Helge Berger and Mark Spoerer crystallize this aspect of the domestic fragmentation in
their essay Economic Crises and the European Revolutions of 1848 (2001). They argue that
“while ideas and institutions undoubtedly contributed to our understanding of the general
preconditions for the upheaval of 1848, they fail to explain the timing, simultaneity, or regional
distribution of the events.”16 Instead, a stronger emphasis on economic and class factors
“reflected in one strand of the Anglo-Saxon literature, ranging from W. W. Rostow, Eric
Hobsbawm, and George Rude…is supported by a number of empirical studies of social disorder
in the 1840s.”17 Berger and Spoerer go on to investigate the “grain-price shock that hit most
European countries in the second half of the 1840s” that significantly crippled the proletariat
class. They argue that this economic crisis triggered revolts by “the peasants and artisans of the
1840s, suffering a severe deterioration in their socioeconomic status.” 18 However, when the
scholars and bourgeois class took the reins of the revolution led by “professors and students but
little to no artisans,”19 they began advocating for reforms that would benefit their class such as
less censorship (increasing scholarly freedom) instead of social welfare programs, universal
15 Hobsbawm, E. J. "Conclusion: Towards 1848." The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789-1848. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. 305. Print.
16 Berger, Helge, and Mark Spoerer. "Economic Crises and the European Revolutions of 1848." The Journal of Economic History 61.02 (2001): Page 294. Cambridge Journals. Web. <http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=81890&jid=JEH&volumeId=61&issueId=02&aid=81889&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=>.
17 IBID. Pages 294-295.18 IBID.19 Hill, Claude. Zweihundert Jahre Deutscher Kultur. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. 121. Print.
12
suffrage, or agricultural subsidies which would have aided the proletariat class. If the concerns of
the artisans and working class were being ignored, why should they continue to revolt? If they
continued, the stable system run by old autocratic families such as the Austrian Habsburgers and
east-Prussian Junkers that had existed for so many years would be compromised. Compromising
this system meant putting the already fragile occupations and livelihoods of the working class
and artisans on the line.
Breuilly’s previously discussed observation, which noted that the scholarly community
threatened the proletariat more oppressively than the aristocracy is yet again applicable. Given
this newly formed threat, the proletariat had no choice but to refrain from further revolutionary
support. This divide is exemplified by Gouldner much more explicitly when he writes, “the
Artisan Congress urged the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848 to support a progressive income tax, a
property tax, and to substitute deportation for capital punishment - demands that the Parliament
found too ‘radical.’”20 Further indication of artisan-working class marginalization is evident in
the demographic make-up of The Frankfurter Parliament. Gouldner notes that “the 586 members
of the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848 included 124 bureaucrats, 104 professors, 100 judicial
officials, 95 lawyers, and only 34 landowners and 13 businessmen.”21 One of the first democratic
institutions in German history that sought to reform the autocracy and unify the confederacy was
egregiously unrepresented. It’s no surprise since the federal election of 1848 was highly selective
in choosing who to grant suffrage. The individual states set their qualifications. In Baden and
Saxony, farm hands were barred; Bavaria only allowed those paying direct taxes to vote and
Wutternberg excluded domestic servants and lower class workers. One class started the
20 Gouldner, Alvin. "Artisans and Intellectuals in the German Revolution of 1848." Theory and Society 12.4 (1983): Page 524. Springer. Web. <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00187755?LI=true#page-1>.
21 IBID. Page 526.
13
revolutions and another class ended the revolutions. Shorter, Hobsbawm, Berger, Spoerer, Hill,
and Gouldner agree that domestic fragmentation caused the splintering of the 1848/49 March
Revolutions arguing that it was additionally related to class warfare.
B. International Politics
A second school of thought argues that it was international politics that impacted the
outcomes of the 1848/49 March Revolutions. Scholars promoting this narrative argue that the
revolution was unsuccessful because it lacked international endorsement. Otto Pflanze details
Germany’s weak international presence in The Unification of Germany: 1848-1871 (1968)
asking, “where under such new conditions stood ‘our poor, tired, much divided Germany’? It
was not a European power, let alone a world power.”22 When a fledgling Germany announced its
desire to unify and break autocratic bonds, it greatly relied on the support of neighboring
democratic movements and governments—namely England and France. Peter Krüger explains
this phenomenon in The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (2003). He notes that
there was at the time an “ideological block [that] corresponded to an east-west division of
Europe into spheres of influence which each side generally respected.”23 So when the time came
for international support and endorsement, Austria received support from the eastern bloc—
headed mostly by Russia—while the western bloc—England and France—did nothing for the
German revolutionaries. The western bloc was more than likely too preoccupied erecting
“constitutional monarchies in Beligum, Spain, and Portugal, while Russia could get away with
crushing the Polish revolt of 1830/31”24 and ultimately the German revolt as well. So many
revolutions and proxy wars were at play at this unique time in European history and Germany
22 Pflanze, Otto. "State and Nation in Germany, Page 123. "The Unification of Germany, 1848-1871.” N.p.: Huntington, N.Y. : R. E. Krieger Pub., 1968. N. pag. Print.
23 Krüger, Peter, and Paul Schroeder. Page 202. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848. N.p.: n.p., 2003. N. pag. Print.
24 IBID.
14
simply did not receive priority from the western bloc. In The German Revolution of 1849 (1903)
Charles Dahlinger highlights the German National Assembly’s lack of external support. He
writes that “when it became apparent that there was no possibility of inducing the other large
powers of Germany to ratify the instrument, the National Assembly began to decline, and in a
few short weeks became a farce and laughing stock.”25 The language used by the aforementioned
scholars such as ‘endorse’, ‘ratify’, and ‘support’ are not particularly clear.
However, taken in the context of international relations, these varied forms of support are
linked to softpower. The revolutionaries can be powerful individually, but to successfully
overthrow such a powerful and long-standing aristocracy, they need to have the potential backing
of other strong countries. If we think back to 1776 and American Revolution it becomes clear
that without the French, there would have never been a successful parting of the colonies from
the British Empire. In The History of Germany Since 1789 (1968) Golo Mann further unpacks
this argument when he writes that “the emergence of a new national state in the heart of Europe
was an international question of concern to all the European powers…popular sovereignty versus
historic or monarchical law, social democracy versus liberalism, dynastic states versus the
Confederation, national state versus foreign nationalities, great powers versus the new Great
Power—none of these problems was really thought through or fought through to the end in 1848
and 1849. In chaotic interplay they dominated, confused and wrecked the great attempt”.26 Thus,
scholars arguing that the revolution was unwanted and lacked international endorsement—
including Mann, Mommsen, Pflanze, Krüger, Sheehan, Fand Dahlinger—argue that international
political factors played the largest role in the outcome of the 1848 German March Revolutions.
25 Dahlinger, Charles William. Page 125. The German Revolution of 1849; Being an Account of the Final Struggle, in Baden, for the Maintenance of Germany's First National Representative Government. New York: Putman's, 1903. N. pag. Print.
26 Mann, Golo, and Marian Jackson. The History of Germany since 1789. New York: Praeger, 1968. 97. Print.
15
C. Strength of the Monarchy
A third common argument among 19th century historians is that the splintering of the
Frankfurter Parliament was due to the strength of the Prussian and Austrian monarchies. From
the Middle Ages to 1806 contemporary German was organized and ruled by The Holy Roman
Empire. The German prince electors were the highest ranking nobles of the empire and The
Kingdoms of Prussia and Austria were the most powerful. The Kingdom of Prussia was founded
in 1701 following the alliance written after the War of the Spanish Succession. Frederick III was
Prussia’s first leader followed by the long-term reign of the Hohenzollerns. Through The Great
Northern War (1700-1721), The Silesian Wars (1740-1760), conflicts with The Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772-1795), and The Napoleonic Wars (1801-1815), The Kingdom
of Prussia established itself as a major player in Europe. Frederick William III (November 1797-
June 1840) and Federick William IV (June 1840-January 1861) ruled Prussia with an iron fist,
similar to that of their closest neighbor. The Kingdom of Austria was led by the infamous
Habsburg Monarchy whose most powerful rulers were Francis II (1792-1806) and the foreign
minister and chancellor of the state Klemens von Metternich (1815-1848).
I give this detailed history of leadership to indicate the length of leadership for each of
the leaders. Both kingdoms had hereditary monarchs who on the whole led for their entire lives.
The longevity of their rule was not coincidental, it was consciously structured. By 1848, Hertz
writes that “the main obstacle to national unity lay in the existence of two German great powers
and four German kingdoms of medium size, all of which were resolved to acknowledge no other
ruler than their own monarch”.27 The length of their leadership reflects the strength of the
conservative, monarchical kingdoms. Otto Pflanze highlights this phenomenon in his novel The
27 Hertz, Friedrich Otto, and Frank Eyck. The German Public Mind in the Nineteenth Century; a Social History of German Political Sentiments, Aspirations and Ideas. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975. Page 277. Print.
16
Unification of Germany, 1848-1871 (1968) when he writes that military strength “[was]
increasing everywhere. The men of the Paulskirche had not recognized either the strength of
these sentiments or the strength of the individual states and dynasties…the forces opposed to the
founding of the Reich were already gigantic. Certainly the opportune moment, if there had ever
been one, no longer existed”.28 In fact, scholars that make this argument such as Wolfgang
Mommsen don’t just note that the dynasties and individual states were strong, they write that
“Die Armeen der europäischen Staaten waren von den revolutionären Strömungen und ebenso
von den nationalistischen Zeittendenzen nahezu unberührt geblieben”.29 In other words, the
existing monarchical structures and allied militaries were so robust that the revolutions barely
even phased them.
With regard to the Frankfurter Parliament, scholars and historians generally concur that
Friedrick William IV and Metternich believed it prudent to let the parliament temporarily exist
only to crush it in the end. Indeed, when the Prussian and Austrian monarchs had had enough
“Carl Alben von Piemont-Sardinien sah seine unter dem Druck einer mehrheitlich
republikanischen Mehrheit im parlament stehende Regierung dem Sog der nationalen
Strömungen so stark ausgesetzt, daß er im März 1849 den so populären Krieg gegen Österreich
wieder aufnahm, freilich mit katastrophalen Folgen; am 23. März 1849 wurde die piemontische
Armee bei Novara von Radetzky vernichten geschlagen”.30 From this excerpt it is clear that the
autocracy more or less pushed the parliament to their preferred expiration date and when they
decided to take military action the defeat was swift and decisive. This is only logical given that
every day the parliament spent hammering out a constitution was a day spent rebuilding military
28 Pflanze, Otto. The Unification of Germany, 1848-1871. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968. 23-24. Print.
29 Mommsen, Wolfgang J. 1848, Die Ungewollte Revolution: Die Revolutionaren Bewegungen in Europa 1830-1849. Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1998. 238. Print.
30 IBID. Page 287.
17
capabilities by Prussia and Austria. The Frankfurter Parliament made a grave mistake focusing
all their efforts on constitution-building and none on strategic military competence.
Given the aforementioned review of the most widely read and respected literature
surrounding the 1848/49 German March Revolutions, we can conclude that there is no universal
consensus on dominant narratives explaining the outcome of the March Revolutions. A more
nuanced, psychological narrative that analysis the motive of the revolutionaries would be most
helpful in explaining the revolution’s outcome. The intellectual history of republicanism in
Germany 1787-1849 is necessary in order to follow the psychology of The Forty-Eighters.
IV. Background on Republicanism
Before I begin on an intellectual history of republicanism in Germany, I find it prudent to
clarify what I mean when I use the term republicanism. Most helpful in this clarification is
Quentin Skinner’s essay Liberty Before Liberalism (1998). In the essay, Skinner recovers the
neo-Roman scholarship regarding liberty and republicanism. The neo-Roman thinkers believed
that liberty could best be preserved through its constituents. It is only through the active
participation in governmental affairs and promotion of civil liberties that one can avoid
18
enslavement. The neo-Romans believed that one was considered a slave if one was subject to an
arbitrary power’s interference. This foundational tenet, the belief that one must actively promote
their civil liberty within a state in order to remain free, clarifies the first portion of Skinner’s
definition of freedom as being “a member of a civil association…unimpeded from exercising
your capacities in pursuit of your desired ends”.31 The very first premise the neo-Romans make
in this definition is that one must be a “member of a civil association”. By redefining ‘civil
association’ as the state we find that paramount to freedom and its preservation is the
requirement that a person operate in a state. Furthermore, this definition maintains that any
impediment to one’s capacity to act freely decreases one’s civil liberty. We can define
“unimpeded” as the ability to choose freely—not controlled or dependent on any outside power.
Another critical aspect of this claim is the word “capacity”. In this regard, Skinner is referring to
the ability to freely pursue individual desires. It is not necessary that one actually reach their
desired ends, but the option to do so must always be available in order to preserve civil liberty.
Decreasing the possibility to do so inherently decreases one’s freedom.
One of the most controversial beliefs held by the neo-Romans is the belief that it is
impossible to enjoy individual liberty without living in a self-governing state. This association is
objected to most by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathon32 (1651) and defended by Skinner
throughout the book. In order to fully comprehend this claim, it is necessary to discuss
governmental institutions that achieve the greatest degree of civil liberty. The neo-Romans
believed that a body politic could foster the vivere libero—freedom of the commonwealth—via
governmental institutions. Skinner does not claim that a state is illegitimate or immoral if it is not
a republic. Rather, he recovers the literature surrounding this scholarship and notes that were one
31 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Page 5. Print.32 Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathon. Originally Published 1651. Tokyo: Kawade Shobo, 1967. Print.
19
to think as a neo-Roman, one would promote democratic governmental institutions such as
elections, separations of power, etc. In a modern republic, self-governance is characterized by
the extension of vote and voice to representatives. This extension of vote and voice are achieved
through elections which are a foundational aspect of a neo-Roman republic.
Central to the discussion of liberty is the question: how can a state function effectively and
preserve public liberty simultaneously? Titus Livius Patavinus first asked this question in his
work History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita) (27 B.C.). Livy was foundational to the evolution of
our contemporary understanding of liberty given that he was one of the first authors to write
about the civitas libera33 or civil liberty, mentioning major tenets of liberty such as slavery,
elections, and rule of law. Following this critical question lies a popular debate amongst political
philosophers such as Livy, Hall, Osborne, Skinner, Milton, and Neville. The aforementioned
authors find a monarchy incompatible with public liberty. However, Machiavelli and a small
minority argue that it is indeed possible to maintain public liberty within the rule of a prince or
monarch.
It was not until Machiavelli’s death and subsequent publishing of his Discorsi in 1531 that
civil liberty was critically analyzed and catapulted to the forefront of the discussion of
republicanism. Most fundamental is his extended analysis on Livy’s discussion of slavery.
Slavery is fundamental because it provides a black and white model through which states can
differentiate the maintenance, or lack thereof, of the body politic’s civil liberty. Situationally, an
individual or a body politic are either slave or free. The two cannot co-exist. Largely believed to
be the element separating a state from slavery and freedom is the notion of self-governance.34
33 Livy (i. E. Titus Livius Patavinus). The History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita). Vol. Originally Written: 27 B.C. Place of Publication Not Identified: Dent, 1912. Print.
34 Machiavelli, Niccolo. Discorsi. Milano: n.p., Originally Published 1531. Print.
20
The concept of de statu hominis—perspective of slavery—offers the distinction between
a free individual and an enslaved individual as “someone who, contrary to nature, is made into
the property of someone else”.35 Machiavelli’s initial assumption is that freedom is a natural
state, slavery being the converse. Machiavelli makes two large claims in this sentence, the first
being that slavery is socially constructed and the second being that humans can only be enslaved
to one another. If one must be “made into” something else, the only driving force behind this
action is another individual or group of individuals. A deviation from one’s natural state of
freedom—as Machiavelli believes it to be—must therefore be done by another person or persons.
Second, Machiavelli claims that humans can only be enslaved to one another. Using the terms
“someone” and “someone else,” Machiavelli clarifies that slavery exists from human to human
and through no other model. Of course, the plurality of the individual is irrelevant; it can be one
person enslaving a body politic or a periphery body politic enslaving another body politic.
Slaves exist in potestate—within the power and jurisdiction of someone else. The neo-
Romans believed that even if a master granted his slave incredible amounts of freedom as the
slave Tranio was given in Plautus’s play Mostellaria,36 it ought to still be regarded as a state of
slavery because one exists in a consistent state of imminent foreign jurisdiction. In other words,
even if one is only coerced for one hour a day or one hour a week, one is still a slave because one
is “obnoxious, perpetually subject or liable to harm or punishment”.37 This claim is highly
disputed because “imminent foreign jurisdiction” or the possibility thereof is 1. Difficult to prove
and 2. Difficult to prevent in its entirety. Putting pragmatic and operative complaints aside,
however, this definition at the very least widens the spectrum of slavery and freedom.
35 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 39.36 Plautus, Titus Maccius., and Frank R. Merrill. Mostellaria. Original Publication Date Unknown. London:
Macmillan, 1972. Print.37 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 42.
21
However, more directly, a slave can be one who exists in potestate domini—continually
remaining within the power and jurisdiction of a master. Existing in potestate domini carries with
it the condition of “obnoxious, perpetually subject or liable to harm or punishment”.38 The
concept of slavery is then applicable to foundational tenets of a republic aiming to maintain
public liberty such as self-governance, elections, the right to deliberate, civic participation, and
political representation. Of the aforementioned, self-governance is perhaps most all-
encompassing and crucial to the maintenance of public liberty.
The neo-Romans believe that any forms of government enslaving their citizens or
subjecting them to a state of obnoxious ought to be abolished and replaced with institutions
promoting self-governance. They argue that the most common form of government incompatible
with the maintenance of public liberty is a monarchical government. Characteristics within a
monarchical government antithetical to civil liberty are the power of the veto, an inability for the
commonwealth to deliberate, the use of force without right, and a deprivation of constitutional
rights among other things. Skinner recovers the texts of scholars that opposed monarchical
governments in the style of the neo-Romans. For example, Milton argues in Eikonoklastes
(1652) that it is fundamentally impossible for a state to be a free merely given the “very
existence of the royal veto”.39 Milton’s scholarship on liberty does not follow popular
scholarship which argues that liberty is freedom of action. Instead, he argues more that liberty is
freedom from another entity’s arbitrary power—the royal veto being such an example. A famous
quote by Milton in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1652) reads, “…surely they that shall
boast, as we do, to be a free nation, and not have in themselves the power to remove or to abolish
any governor supreme, or subordinate, with the government itself upon urgent causes, may
38 IBID.39 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 52.
22
please their fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to cozen babies”.40 His syllogism
with regard to “freedom from an arbitrary power”, however, mostly lies within The Digest41—a
compilation of Roman Law. CONTINEU HERE The Digest discusses slavery “under the rubric
of de statu hominis, where we are told that the most fundamental distinction within the law of
persons is between those who are free and those who are slaves”.42 Thus, the study of slavery is
crucial not just to the discussion of liberty and republicanism, but to larger questions of human
identity as well, given that liberty links to “fundamental distinctions within the law of persons”.
Crucial to the maintenance of civil liberty is self-governance. If the will of the whole is
not represented in law and governance, the commonwealth has been reduced to a collection of
slaves. Skinner draws on scholars such as Marchamont Nedham who wrote that individuals are,
“keepers of their own liberties”.43 The preservation of liberty rests with the person in focus
because all people are keepers of their own liberty. A tangible manifestation of this self-
governance is evident in the institution of an elected assembly. The neo-Romans were not foolish
enough to assume that every individual can voice his/her opinion within politics and policy as
the Grecians notoriously attempted. However, they argued that electing a representative to serve
as an extension of political will is the valid alternative. Thus, a representative body of elected
officials is the body that enacts laws by popular choice, continuing to preserve liberty.44 There is
a second body, however, that the neo-Romans believed to be necessary for successful
governance—an additional body that deliberates with elevated wisdom. The neo-romans would
40 Milton, John. Complete Prose Works of John Milton, Vol III. Ed. Merritt Hughes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.Originally Published: 1652. Print. Page 241.
41 Mommsen, Theodor, Paul Krueger, and Alan Watson. The Digest of Justinian. Originally published 530 A.D. Philadelphia, PA: U of
Pennsylvania, 1985. Print.42 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 39.43 Nedham, Marchamont. The Excellencie of a Free-State. London: Printed for Thomas Brewster. 1656. Pp, ix-x.
Print.44 IBID. Page 34.
23
therefore be strongly in favor of a senate and house of representatives model meritocratically
formed.
If the ability to self-govern allows the body politic to define its own fate and thus be free,
the converse also holds true. If the body politic were not able to determine its own fate, another
party would instead hold that power and the body politic would hitherto be enslaved to the
jurisdiction of another. This, the neo-Romans assert, is why it is impossible for a body politic to
be free within a monarchy. When the king or leading monarch submits the state to his/her
jurisdiction, he/she enslaves the body politic. In the presence of slavery, liberty cannot exist. This
then is the definition of a republic: a system of governance in which the affairs of the state are a
public matter—the literal translation of res publica—and its constituents are not enslaved,
maintaining significant liberty.
Through the lens of self-governance, we can see several other facets of liberty such as
deliberation and participation. The right to deliberate Milton asserts in Eikonoklastes is a
“fundamental duty”45 of the commonwealth. If we accept Nedham’s claim that citizens are
“keepers of their own liberties,”46 a parliament or a house of commons would be necessary.
Though this view has support from esteemed political philosophers such as Milton, Osborne, and
Nedham, other thinkers and writers such as Harrington, Neville, and Sidney disagree. The latter
three purport bicameral forms of legislation. Harrington’s The Commonwealth of Oceana 47 —
though somewhat antediluvian with regard to contemporary political theory—promotes a model
in which one body, the senate, is comprised of the nobility and an executive council; the second
body encompasses the popularly elected representatives. Harrington follows, “adding that the
45 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 48.46 IBID. Page 26.47 Harrington, James. The Commonwealth of Oceana. Originally Published 1656. London: George Routledge and
Sons, 1887. Print.
24
senate should be elected by parliament as a whole”48 and Sidney speaks of a need for rational
individuals capable of “temper[ing] the absolutism of monarch and the excesses of the
multitude”.49 Following these literary publications is the debate on the validity of a unicameral vs
bicameral legislature, a judiciary with the power to make annul laws, the extension of
governance to a president, etc.
The neo-Romans also believed that the concept of self-governance required the
participation of its constituents. If governance is rooted in elections, the electorate holds the
power. The ability to lobby, speak publically, write to your representative, or any other form of
communication between constituent and elected leader is a form of self-governance. If a
constituent believes a law to be unjust, he/she has the power to voice his/her opposition or
through protest, petition, or otherwise. This extension of self-governance is important to note
because 1. It is a characteristic of a republic and 2. A requirement for the preservation of liberty.
However, the preservation of liberty within a “commonwealth,” “joint voice,” or “body politic”
can be misconstrued based on the time’s laws regarding citizenship and voting rights. A
discussion, therefore, of the contemporary composition of a body politic and its evolution is
important. We must ask ourselves what a body politic truly is and what role it plays in the
promotion of liberty. The simple definition of a body politic would be a conglomerate of voting
citizens or simply, “we the people” as is forever enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. But who are
“we the people?” It would be behoove us to note that at the time of the neo-Romans, a body
politic would not have included women, slaves, those without property, or first-nation
immigrants. This exclusion of more than half the population is a significantly limited definition
of the body politic. Come Hobbes’s Leviathon the body politic is neither inclusive nor free. On
48 Skinner, Quentin. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998. Print. Page 35.49 IBID. Page 35.
25
the contrary, though the body is comprised of many parts, Hobbes still maintained that the head
is the king, with many minority groups ignored. We will see this voter marginalization in the as
well as the struggle to establish the right kind of republic for Germany in the following chapters.
V. Intellectual History
A. 1787-1803—Rejected Jacobinism
From 1787-1803 the first version of republicanism that was considered in the German
confederacy was Jacobinism. In the follow I will argue that the Jacobin ideology was rejected
by the vast majority of the German population because there was 1. Considerable opposition
by the intellectual community 2. General satisfaction with the current system and 3.
Francophobia induced by French militarization.
Jacobinism refers to the values and ideologies of the Jacobin Club which was the most
influential political club in the French Revolution up until the death of their leader—
Maximilien de Robespierre—in 1794. The Jacobin ideology that was developing in France at
the time was considerably left wing and radical which resulted in the famous Reign of Terror.
French Jacobinism mirrored many aspects of American republicanism such as its promotion
of a “centralized republican state and strong central government powers”.50 Jacobinism held
the common man in high esteem, arguing that “any institution which does not suppose the
people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil” – Robespierre.51 Along with the social
50 Rey, Alain. Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Le Robert, 1992.51 Lejeune, Anthony. The Concise Dictionary of Foreign Quotations. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001. Print. 117.
26
contract and the freedom of all men, a move from monarchistic feudalism to a democratic
republic was what the Jacobin ideology encouraged. Following great success in Paris, many
German intellectuals, politicians, and other members of the upper middle class responded
sympathetically to Jacobinism by trying to set up ‘Jacobin Clubs’ at home. 1789 was a
critical year because this year saw the start of the French Revolution and robust Jacobin
promotion. 1794 is also a crucial year because it was the year in which both the Mainz
Republic of Germany failed and Robespierre died which severely diminished a hopeful
spread of Jacobinism throughout Germany en masse. I end this chronological category with
the year 1803 because that was the start of the Napoleonic Years which pressed Jacobinism
far into the background.
From 1789 to 1803 Germany’s intellectual community was highly influential in framing
Jacobinism as wild and barbaric. Eric Dorn Brose explains the intellectual and artistic
community’s role in interpreting the French Revolution when he writes that “like all great
artists, obviously, Goethe and Schiller were unusually sensitive to the currents and
undercurrents of the era. This sensitivity enabled them to render valuable assistance to
contemporaries struggling to perceive the rhythm of the times. By interpreting and defining
reality with their imagery, however, artists enter a political dimension, especially during
anxious and frightening periods of rapid change or when oppressive regimes stifle other
means of expression”.52 Thus, an analysis of the impactful works at the time would give us a
window into how the German culture was being molded with regard to the French
Revolution. For Schiller and Goethe, many:
Heroes and heroines end tragically: Wallenstein is betrayed; Mary Stuart beheaded; and Joan of Arc burned at the stake. Preoccupied with Greek dramas, Schiller allows a cruel
52 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Page 37. Print.
27
fate to undermine the revolts, struggles, and intrigues of his characters—a destiny which individual action cannot avoid or alter. ‘In the end,’ observes Martin Malia, ‘rebellion is invariably punished by failure’. To Schiller, in fact, the times were not ripe for revolt because the people were imperfect. The deterioration of the French Revolution—ending, as he predicted in 1794, with the advent of ‘a strong man’ (like Napoleon) who would restore order and become ‘the unlimited lord’ of France and ‘much of the rest of Europe’–had demonstrated that freedom was not attained through reason alone.53
These authors taught their German audiences that if one was rational, one certainly could not
concur with the Jacobins. Johann Gottfried Herder—one of the most prolific and respected
philosophers at the time—wrote in a letter that “we can watch the French Revolution as we
watch a shipwreck at sea from the safety of the shore.”54 This opinion was by many in the
German intellectual community. Konrad Engelbert Oelsner, for example, criticized the
Jacobins when he wrote, “‘überhaupt streben diese Leute [the Jacobins] nach einer wilden
Demokratie, das allergefährlichste Ungeheuer, so gedacht werden kann. Sie wäre ein
untrügliches Mittel, die civilisirteste Nation in die tiefste Barbarey zu stürzen.’”55 A ‘wild
democracy’ founded by barbaric revolutionaries framed the Jacobins as uncivilized and
irrational which were received very poorly by observing Germans.
J.B. Metzler expands on this when he writes in the preface of Walter Grab's novel, Leben
Und Werke Norddeutscher Jakobiner that “die Merzahl der deutschen Intelligenz neigte den
staatstheoretischen und politischen Prinzipien Immanuel Kants zu, die in dessen
moralphilosophischen Abhandlungen niedergelegt waren. Für den Königsberger Philosophen
und seine meisten Anhänger und Schüler bedeutete die Revolution nichts anderes als eine
Umwälzung im bloßen Denken.”56 Kantian ethics—which view rationality as the ultimate
good—would have rebuked supporters of the fledgling, untested Jacobin ideology. For a 53 IBID. Page 39.54 Gooch, George Peabody. Germany and the French Revolution. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966. Page 167.
Print.55 Saine, Thomas P. Black Bread--White Bread: German Intellectuals and the French Revolution. Columbia, SC,
USA: Camden House, 1988. Print. 292.56 Metzler, J.B.. Leben Und Werke Norddeutscher Jakobiner. Stuttgart, 1973. Print. XII-XIII.
28
society educated by the philosophies of Kant, Jacobi, and Fichte, anything irrational was not
only foolish but dangerous as well. Thomas P. Saine writes in his book Black Bread--White
Bread: German Intellectuals and the French Revolution that “…according to the political
theory most of them had learned, ‘democracy’ was the degenerative hypostasis of the
‘republican’ form of government, just as ‘despotism’ or ‘tyranny’ was the degenerative form
of ‘monarchy’”.57 This means that if Germans of all socioeconomic status were to accept
Jacobinism, they would be endorsing something ‘degenerative’. The aspersions from the
intellectual community continued as “...the French Revolution had not found any admirers
among German statesmen or philosophers, only among poets, ‘Romanschreiber,’ and
‘philanthropische Kosmopoliten’ such as Campe…but poets are not obligated to be real
people in touch with the real world.”58 The Jacobin ideology promoted lofty, shining values
that sounded nice in a poem or song but were wholly unrealistic.
To insult the Jacobin Club for being out of touch with the real world is a harsh criticism.
The crowd the Jacobins needed to appeal to most were the peasants and artisans because only
they were capable of fueling ideology into action. The German peasantry was fully aware
that their government was not perfect, but did it need to be burned to the ground and subject
to the guillotine in order to be improved? Saine answers this question when he writes
“liberals and intellectuals hoped all along that the French example would encourage German
rulers to introduce reforms and improve conditions in their states voluntarily, obviating the
necessity of revolution or dramatic change in the form of German governments, for which, as
we have seen, even politically advanced German writers such as Forster and Rebmann
57 Saine, Thomas P. Black Bread--White Bread: German Intellectuals and the French Revolution. Columbia, SC, USA: Camden House, 1988. Print. 280.
58 IBID. Pages 285-286
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considered the Germans to be as yet unready”.59 With such a criticisms, the intellectual
community was cutting off the Jacobins’ most powerful and necessary tool. Though German
peasants were sympathetic to Jacobinism, they were not prepared to dramatically launch feet
first into a revolution and without the muscle of the working class, the ideology was dead in
the water.
Though the intellectual community’s criticisms were highly influential we must
remember our time period. Unlike The Netherlands in 1581 or France in 1806, the German
confederation that existed had not broken away from The Holy Roman Empire. Instead it
“survived in altered form [even after]…the ravages of the Reformation, the Thirty Years
War, and Austro-Prussian rivalry”.60 This is a truly fascinating way to view late 18th, early
19th century Germany. A slightly altered version of the Holy Roman Empire suggests that the
empire had not died and been forgotten. Rather, the culture, structure, and traditions lived on
through the Kingdoms of Prussia and Austria. Sheehan highlights this phenomenon when he
writes that “these people were much too deeply embedded in the existing order to lead a
revolution”.61 Brose builds on Sheehan writing that “traditional social institutions and time-
honored means of production still predominated in the countryside amidst much discussion
of ways to improve output. By creating paid work, moreover, the putting-out system
provided a buffer against greater misery on the land.”62 In 1789 Germany, there was a respect
for hierarchy and social placement. Guilds and freemasonry were part of Germany’s
“organizational web”63 and abrupt challenges to this fully functional system were not looked
at favorably. This is description is radically different than late 18th, early 19th century France. 59 IBID. Page 278.60 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Page 22. Print.61 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. Print. 217.62 IBID. Page 22.63 IBID. Page 20.
30
Therefore, The French Revolution and Jacobin promulgation were possible, in great part,
because the French were not as dedicated to their monarchy and Holy Roman Empire styled
structure.
When The French Revolution questioned the socially constructed organizational web, it
radically altered the roles of individuals within their society, especially women. However, in
his historiography Brose writes that “the majority of enlightened upper class thinkers were
less concerned about social and gender issues. They greeted French events with the smug
assurance that the Revolution was something good for humanity and for France, but was
generally unnecessary for the Germanies”.64 Saine expands on this notion by writing that
“what mattered most, in their opinion, was not the form of government, but the extent to
which the policy of the ruler was progressive and enlightened—even if that ruler was an
autocrat”.65 Middle and lower class Germans, though strongly suppressed, were pleased
enough with an autocrat as long as he was doing an adequate job within the region.
This reflects more Machiavellian or enlightened absolutist values because the notion of
democracy is unimportant as long as the state or region is stable and effectively governed. If
we return to my background on republicanism, we find that this perspective holds many of
the same values Machiavelli held 300 years earlier. Saine explains this further when he
writes that “the Germans who sympathized with the French Revolution were, however,
generally well enough pleased with the solution of constitutional monarchy at which the
French had arrived in September, 1791, that they had no desire to see the Revolution carried
any farther”.66 From this we can see that the average citizen’s disposition towards a
64 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. Print. Page 24.65 Saine, Thomas P. Black Bread--White Bread: German Intellectuals and the French Revolution.
Columbia, SC, USA: Camden House, 1988. Print. 276.66 IBID. Page 275.
31
government reflecting Jacobin ideology was not favorable. Instead, the long-held structure of
absolutism was still favored by the majority of the German population.
Lastly, the distancing of this ideology only grew when the French tried to aid German-
Jacobins in establishing The Republic of Mainz. French militarization of Germany in 1792-
93 ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back. On October 21, 1792 the French
military led by General Custine took over Mainz after a brief period of weakness on part of
the Prussians and Austrians.67 The Jacobins saw this as an opportunity to strong arm their
ideology into Germany society. With minimal support domestically, German-Jacobins turned
to their only other hope: the French military. On March 18, 1793 independence from the
monarchy was declared and The Mainz Society of the Friends of Liberty and Equality (or
just The Republic of Mainz) was established by the German Jacobin Club. From this point
on, the German Jacobins were no longer a grassroots movement; they were a puppet
program. Grab clarifies this when he writes, “daher blieb die deutsche jakobinische
Bewegung währen der ganzen Epoche der fanzösischen Republik nicht nur ideologisch,
sondern auch militärisch auf den Beistand Frankreichs angewiesen”.68 With the French now
being both the ideological and military motor, Jacobinism was perceived as something
foreign and outsourced resulting in significant backlash and hatred for anything French.
In The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, Helmut Walser Smith goes into
detail about this occupation writing, "whether through newly-instituted taxes, formal
requisitions, or simple confiscation, the revolutionary troops took everything that was not
67 Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution, 1787-1799; from the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon. New York: Vintage, 1975. Print.
68 Grab, Walter. Jakobinismus Und Demokratie in Geschichte Und Literatur: 14 Abhandlungen. Frankfurt Am Main: Lang, 1998. Print. 23.
32
nailed down".69 To the locals suffering under this new occupation, Jacobinism didn’t look
anything like freedom, democracy, and sovereignty. Their livelihoods had been disturbed and
their privacy forcibly taken. It should have come as no surprise to the Jacobins when the
locals refused to support and defend their newfound republic against Prussian and Austrian
troops. Without public support, the already weak republic didn’t stand a chance against the
Prussian and Austrian troops who swiftly crushed the French occupation on July 22, 1793.
Reidar Maliks writes about the end of German Jacobinism in his book Kant’s Politics in
Context noting that "just as French radicalism abated after 1794, it also diminished in
Germany, and in hindsight it is clear that the German Jacobins were never a serious threat to
the governments of Prussia or the other German states".70 Thus, with only 5 months to their
name, The Mainz Republic soon perished and with it the transfer of French Jacobinism to
Germany.
The intellectual community’s resistance combined with the average citizen’s relative
contentment with the existing order led Germans to reject Jacobinism styled republicanism.
B. 1803-1815—Napoleonic Era
On December 4, 1805 the great Austrian and Russian powers were defeated by France in The
Battle of Austerlitz. Soon after the kingdoms collapsed entirely with The War of the Fourth
Coalition. In the following decade, a French occupied Germany saw 1. Significant
socioeconomic change 2. Heightened nationalism and patriotism and 3. A bolstering of domestic
69 Smith, Helmut Walser. The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. 151.
70 Maliks, Reidar. Kant's Politics in Context. Corby: Oxford UP, 2014. Print. 89-90.
33
defenses which made political change a low priority though I will mention some fledgling
republican developments.
Though Germany was occupied, scholars agree that The Napoleonic Years were a time of
great renewal and liberalization in the kingdoms of Austria and Prussia. The 1811 Edict of
Regulation “granted to 161,000 peasant households—about 10 percent of all farming families—
the right to land title in return for a compensatory payment to the lord of a third or a half of the
peasant’s land”.71 This edict was remarkable because the altered Holy Roman Empire built upon
generations of feudal serfdom and hereditary monarchical rule was written off and eliminated
with the stroke of a pen. The edict severely tarnished the guild system that had dominated middle
and lower class workers. Monopolies were abolished and rural factories were granted tax
preferences that incentivized better wages and conditions for workers. The kingdoms were also
patrons of sweeping secular and anti-clerical policies such as the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss
(Final Recess) which secularized multiple territorial possessions of the Catholic Church.
What impact did this renewal and liberalization have on the German commoner? For starters,
Napoleon’s audacious claim as emperor in 1804 offended royal sensitivities such that “Austria
and Russia agreed to join Europe’s Third Coalition against France”.72 In my study of German
political culture preceding The Napoleonic Years, I argued Germans were strongly committed to
the monarchy and their stable, feudal lifestyle. When the French Revolution and Jacobins
threatened that lifestyle, the intellectual community, aristocracy, and average German citizen
rebuked them.
Second, the abolition of serfdom, guild dominance, manufacturing monopoly, and anti-
clerical policies would seem liberating for the lower class. However, as Brose explains,
71 Maliks, Reidar. Kant's Politics in Context. Corby: Oxford UP, 2014. Print. Page 64.72 IBID. Page 47.
34
“initially, some peasants saw promise in the new regime’s abolition of serfdom, but the
excruciating tax burden of the French, combined with the terror of war, quickly dispelled
favorable thoughts. The new secularization policies and extreme anti-clerical attacks against the
church, moreover, proved highly unpopular with fundamentally devout Rhenish Catholics”.73
The ruination of the guilds was received very poorly because they were tight organizations of
artisans and merchants that created a system to efficiently carry out a particular craft. Guild
masters hired young apprentices who they trained and would eventually take over the business. It
was a highly functional and insulated organizational web that provided communities stability and
direction. When Napoleon came in and wiped out this stable structure, the result was anarchy not
freedom.
A second effect of the French annexation was heightened patriotism and nationalism. Easily
confused with each other, they are distinctly separated by their end goals. Patriotic Germans
sought to bolster their military and defense capabilities with the hope of ejecting France and
returning to the Holy Roman Empire. Nationalist Germans also wished to strengthen military and
defense capabilities with the hope of ousting France but they were not nostalgic for the Holy
Roman Empire. Instead, German nationalists sought a new order—one in which the confederacy
could be united and strengthened by their fraternal, Germanic bonds. Many of these patriotic or
nationalistic overtones could be found in the music and art of the time. Brose writes that:
Ludwig van Beethoven’s sentiments were anti-Napoleonic after the Eroica Symphony, and occasionally this feeling worked its way into the great composer’s music…Friedrich Schiller, too, adopted patriotic motifs in later plays like Wilhelm Tell. Indeed the goal of freeing Central Europe from French tyranny was shared by those Germans who did not support the Rhenish Confederation. This patriotic yearning to defeat France should not be confused, however, with more overtly nationalistic efforts to found a modern, unified German state. While both impulses can be found in Friedrich’s work, far more frequently,
73 Maliks, Reidar. Kant's Politics in Context. Corby: Oxford UP, 2014. Print. Pages 36-37.
35
patriotic Germans longed for a return to the Holy Roman Empire—a goal that admittedly had nationalistic overtones even though it was backward-looking…74
Though Johann Gottfried Herder is the father of the concept of the Volksgeist, it was Johann
Gottlieb Fichte who popularized and developed this concept in his Addresses to the German
Nation. In his address, he argued that there was a unique spirit of the Volk, or nation such that no
two nations could be the same. This concept was adopted by many philosophers including
Friedrich Carl von Savigny. In 1808, Fichte wrote in his eighth speech that:
Ihnen verdanken wir, die nächsten Erben ihres Bodens, ihrer Sprache und ihrer Gesinnung, daß wir noch Deutsche sind, daß der Strom ursprünglichen und selbstständigen Lebens uns noch trägt; ihnen verdanken wir alles, was wir seitdem als Nation gewesen sind, ihnen, falls es nicht etwa jetzt mit uns zu Ende ist, und der letzte von ihnen abgestammte Blutstropfen in unsern Adern versiegt ist, ihnen werden wir verdanken alles, was wir noch ferner sein werden. Ihnen verdanken selbst die übrigen, uns jetzt zum Ausland gewordenen Stämme, in ihnen unsere Brüder, ihr Dasein; als jene die ewige Roma besiegten, war noch keins aller dieser Völker vorhanden; damals wurde zugleich auch ihnen die Möglichkeit ihrer künftigen Entstehung mit erkämpft.75
The promulgation of a uniquely German Volksgeist was very influential in the minds and hearts
of many Germans. This ideology, along with other nationalistic and patriotic elements promoted
by anti-Napoleonic writers and artists such as Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Hegel, and Beethoven,
worked to cement Francophobic perspectives in early 19th century Germany. A result of this pro-
German, anti-French sentiment was that “the country’s energies were devoted far more to
defense than to reform”.76 It is for this reason that political culture in Germany with regards to
republicanism was stalled. The aristocracy was busy fighting the French, the upper class and
intellectuals were busy demonizing Napoleon and the French Revolution and “from Jena to
Eylau [everything] was ravaged: and the peasants remained indifferent to everything but French 74 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 67-68.75 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Reden an Die Deutsche Nation, Achte Rede, 1808. Web.
<http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/reden-an-die-deutsche-nation-411/1>.76 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 60.
36
foraging parties at harvest time”.77 Primary concern and energies were dedicated to war-time
efforts, not to republican development.
However, a few interesting republican attempts were made and I find them important to
mention because they laid the groundwork for the strong spirited movements that took place in
the years following the Napoleonic Era. The Assembly of Notables and the Provincial National
Assembly are examples of an attempted but failed republican institutions. The former was
established in 1811 by the Chancellor of Prussia in order to “make a ‘democratic’ beginning in
Prussia, but the birthing effort miscarried when the aristocratic majority launched an assault upon
proposals to tax noble estates and eliminate the nobility’s local police powers”.78 As a result,
Hardenberg established the Provincial National Assembly in Berlin that was comprised of 18
noblemen, nine peasants, and 12 burghers. The assembly criticized Napoleon’s anti-guild
policies and discussed other avenues they could take in order to rid themselves of French rule.
However, “the country’s leaders and its people were distracted long before this time by the final
act of Europe’s struggle to unseat Napoleon”.79
Another interesting republican development was the work of Gerhard Johann David
Waitz von Scharnhorst who sought to end aristocratic privileges in Prussia. He argued that “the
officer corps should be opened to all social classes with admission based on education and
competitive examination. Promotion should be based on merit. Alongside the regular army,
moreover, would arise a national guard to lend popular fervor to a war of liberation against
Napoleon”.80 Scharnhorst’s egalitarian and meritocratic reforms in the military are widely
77 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 62.
78 IBID. Page 65.79 IBID.80 IBID. Page 63.
37
recognized as positive improvements. His work in this regard combined with his military
prowess are honored today with a statue of him in Unter den Linden, Berlin.
A third interesting republican attempt was a document drafted in Bavaria in May of 1808
that “called for indirect male election of deputies who met property and education qualifications.
The Diet could not initiate legislation, but could advise the king on laws which he presented to
them for review”.81 This proposal would certainly reflect the illiberal republican varietal that I
am seeking to highlight in this paper. Only educated males with property were allowed office
and even at that, the election was indirect. Though this illiberal republican proposal was not
passed, it is an example of changing political culture in French occupied Germany.
The Napoleonic Era of 1803-1815 saw a French occupied Germany which experienced
significant socioeconomic change, heightened nationalism and patriotism, and a bolstering of
domestic defenses which resulted in minimal political change not including three marginal
republican developments.
C. 1815-1830—Budding Political Culture in a Rigidly Monarchistic Environment
1815-1830 was time in which most Germans lived in agrarian poverty and the political
system was under tight, autocratic control. It was in this austere time, however, that several
political organizations and intellectual communities developed that began laying the ground
work for the republican developments to come in the 1830s. First, I will briefly address the
socioeconomic conditions and then discuss the interplay of the changing intellectual and political
culture with increasing government rigidity.
81 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 54.
38
As I previously mentioned, The Napoleonic Era brought about sweeping socioeconomic
changes such as the abolition of serfdom, guilds, and freer enterprise. For the most part,
however, these changes did not work in the German commoner’s favor. Brose writes that
“marriage to a baker, butcher, cobbler, or weaver was more of an economic partnership than a
love match”.82 This indicates a strong necessary to prioritize security and survival over anything
else. 80% of Germans lived in “the ploughlands and the orchards”83 whose villages had less than
2,000 people. The agrarian life was a hard one. Long hours in filthy conditions with steep taxes
would be a common picture of the lower and working class.
In Prussia the situation was marginally better than in Austria because King Frederick III
allowed the passage of more liberal legislation that advocated for the lower and working class.
But even Prussia’s environment was on the whole quite grim. Brose writes that “Prussia and
Austria had withstood the challenge of revolutionary France. Prussia faced this challenge,
however, by embarking upon social, economic, and political reforms similar to those undertaken
in the Rhenish Confederation, whereas Austria persevered with most of its traditional
institutions”.84 The Prussian peasants—especially those in the Rhineland and Bavarian-Palatinate
—were on the whole the most stable in Germany. The Stein-Hardenberg Reforms led by Karl
Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg were a series of reforms that sought to
pay reparations to France, stabilize the German economy, and benefit the various socioeconomic
classes. The 1816 Edicts of Regulation (Regulierungsedikten) and 1821 Ablöseordnung
82 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 123.
83 Clapham, J. H. The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815-1914. Cambridge: U, 1936. 82. Print.84 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 76.
39
(Redemption Decree) are examples of the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms.8586 Though unsuccessful in
rescuing cobblers, tailors, and artisans from their impecunious condition, the Stein-Hardenberg
Reforms indicate an effort on the Prussian Junkers’ behalf to mobilize the lower class.
Austria’s situation was somewhat different. Austrian peasants tended to be the least
supported in the Confederation.87 This is due to Metternich’s strict and draconian grip on the
Austrian economy couple with a weak parliament. The Austrian Kingdom’s refusal to
industrialize and embrace progressive reforms severely diminished the lower class’ standard of
living. In Austria, “dependence on supplemental incomes left most country families vulnerable to
cyclic and structural economic changes. Recessions undermined cottage industry as merchant
manufacturers cut back on the materials they put out”.88 Amidst one of the most
socioeconomically indigent times for the Prussian and Austrian lower class, however, several
political organizations and intellectual communities developed that began laying the ground
work for the greater republican developments to come in the 1830s.
By 1830, The Holy Roman Empire was certainly gone along with its surfeit of
ecclesiastical states. Sheehan notes in his German History Situation that “a time-traveler,
suddenly transported from the sixteenth century would have been amazed at German politics and
culture, but would have found the social and economic order quite familiar” (Sheehan, 470).
Post-Napoleonic Germany saw “hundreds of new associations which disseminated information
and recruited members from all classes…[promoting] the freer exchange of ideas”.89 The
85 Fehrenbach, Elisabeth (1986). Vom Ancien Régime zur Wiener Kongress [From the Ancien Régime to the Vienna Congress]. Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte (in German) 7. Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. ISBN 978-3-486-49754-0.
86 Nipperdey, Thomas (1998). Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgerwelt und starker Staat [German History 1800–1866: Civil Society and a Strong State] (in German). Munich: C. H. Beck. ISBN 3-406-44038-X.
87 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 113.
88 IBID. Page 116.89 IBID. Page 117.
40
German confederacy was burgeoning with developments in the humanities—particularly in art,
literature, theology, and history. Brose reveals that “these trends from the world of academic
philosophy—as well as music, painting, and architecture—reflected a new historical
consciousness in Germany…historical thinking became an even more prominent part of the
German mentality after 1815 as social and economic change increased appreciation for values
and institutions that threatened to pass from the scene”.90 Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic
landscape paintings worked to instill nationalism and critical thinking of Germany’s political
system. Old Heroes' Graves and Fir Forest with the French Dragoon and the Raven are some of
Friedrich’s most famous paintings that inspired other German Romantics and are indicative of
the time’s developing humanities. Brose writes that “in both paintings [Wanderer above a Foggy
Moor and Two Men Looking at the Moon] the viewer is invited to turn his back on an
unacceptable present, step into the faceless figure, and hope, perhaps struggle, for change”.91
There was also significant patriotic literature critiquing the French Revolution and antiquated
German monarchy such as Ernst Moritz Arndt’s Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland? In the ninth
stanza, Arendt writes:
Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!O Gott vom Himmel, sieh darein
Und gib uns rechten deutschen Mut,Dass wir es lieben treu und gut!
Das soll es sein! Das soll es sein!Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein!92
An emphasis on “deutschen Mut” is critical in the link between German patriotism and
republicanism. A desire for a unified Germany not tied down by the aristocracy are fundamental
90 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Pages 146-147.91 IBID. Pages 138-139.92 Arndt, Ernst Moritz. Des Deutschen Vaterland. 1813. Musical Piece.
41
republican values that glorify the people above the system. Even in Hegel’s theology, we find a
quest for unity and political reformation. Brose writes that “Hegel believed that the wars of the
French Revolution had resulted in the restored unity of the divine spirit and that it was lodged—
or actualized—in Prussia, a state destined to become the agent of progress”.93 A divinely
endorsed political reform was something very impactful on religiously affiliated Germans (the
majority being Catholics and Protestants) as well as an entire school of thought that manifested
itself in The Young Hegelians. Perhaps the most prominent social science developments of this
time are those of the historians. The Grimm Brothers—especially Jacob Grimm—worked to
recover German culture through folklore and their famous Grimms' Fairy Tales. Murray Peppard
reveals that “their motive in discovering the old language and reediting old manuscripts was not
primarily academic but rather patriotic: it was a means of discovering the spirit of the past.”94
Furthermore, Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Grammatik was a groundbreaking, historical and
linguistic piece published in 1822 that is indicative of the flourishing humanities of this time.
Grimm’s recovery of German history and culture was paralleled by prolific scholars such as
Barthold Georg Niebuhr, Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, August Boeckh, and Friedrich Karl von
Savigny.
Halle, Marburg, Berlin, and Giessen were teeming with gymnastics clubs, fraternities,
and petition movements. All three were significant movements that “were insistent that the
princes introduce freedom of press, speech, assembly, and religion; guarantee the sanctity of
property; establish equality before the law; and a constitution for one, united Germany. It was
this lofty purpose which drew over 450 demonstrators to Eisenach in October 1817”.95 It is
93 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 146.
94 Murray B. Peppard, Paths Through the Forest: A Biography of the Brothers Grimm (New York, 1971). Page. 29. Print.
95 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
42
critical to dig into the nuanced connection between patriotism and republicanism in this regard.
Though freedom of press, speech assembly, etc. are all foundational elements of a republic, we
most note that they are all linked to an illiberal foundation: the fulcrum of the government still
lying with princes and kings. I will expand on this illiberalism at the latter portion of this
intellectual history, but here we see the very first groundwork being laid for a unique, illiberal
republican varietal.
Meanwhile in Württemberg, the parliament was passionately seeking to pass a new
constitution. After much deliberation and a move to put the constitution to a vote “Metternich
attempted to intimidate the constitutional convention by announcing that ‘the outcome of the
Württembergian Assembly will perhaps determine the fate of Germany.’ In a demonstration of
courageous defiance, however, the delegation unanimously approved Germany’s next modern
constitution”.96 The constitution had no chance of coming to fruition under Metternich’s
draconian rule but it did send a message. The parliament who represented the people were not
powerful but they were also growing less and less afraid of the monarchy.
Though there were significant contributions with regards to the humanities and politics,
there was little to no reciprocation from the Austrian and Prussian kingdoms. Metternich and
Frederick III had a will to maintain strict hierarchy and firmly rooted operations in Berlin and
Vienna. Brose writes that “history has rarely produced a politician as skillful and deceptive as
Clemens von Metternich”.97 The two did not take their positions for granted and viciously fought
to maintain order. In retrospect, however, “these powerful, prestigious aristocrats [Habsburgs,
Hohenzollerns, Wittelsbachs, Liechtensteins] were so solidly entrenched that they were
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Pages 86-87.96 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 90-91.97 IBID. Page 92.
43
invulnerable to property values, price trends, and market cycles. Only wars and revolutions could
threaten to topple these dominant clans”.98 Neither the Austrian Kingdom nor the Prussian
Kingdom were anywhere close to revolution or war. All of the previously mentioned political
and intellectual activity must be taken with a grain of salt “for this was indeed an authoritarian
era accompanied by much of the ugliness which we know from our own imperfect world…the
Burschenschaften and gymnastics clubs were everywhere disbanded”.99
Perhaps the most oppressive move on behalf of the monarchy were the Carlsbad Decrees
which were passed and enforced on September 20, 1819. The press and the scholarly community
were heavily censored, parliaments were weakened to almost nothing, the intellectual
community was strongly restricted, and the military frequently invaded without a moment’s
notice. The decrees were organized into three sections: 1. Universitätsgesetz (Student
Organizations) 2. Preßgesetz (Press Law) and 3. Untersuchungsgesetz (Investigating
Committee). The first legally disbanded all fraternities, gymnastics, and singing groups. This
section also contained restrictions on the academic community, giving the government the power
to spontaneously terminate the positions of university professors. Prussian King Frederick
William III was quoted saying “it is an urgent duty to counteract vigorously the highly dangerous
and criminal state of mind which has gained ascendancy among the inexperience youth of
German universities”.100 The monarchy was feeling the threat of the forming social movements’
discontent with the current political order. Though nothing significant would grow out of this
‘criminal mindset’ in this decade, the following decade would rally the masses to march on
provincial strongholds like Saarbrücken, Bavaria, and Wiesbaden.
98 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 108.
99 IBID. Page 93.100 Simon, Walter Michael. The Failure of the Prussian Reform Movement, 1807-1819. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP,
1955. 134-35. Print.
44
The section on censorship was perhaps the most austere and historically infamous. All
manners of communication including operas, books, plays, newspapers, and brochures were put
under a microscope. Brose writes that:
Julius Schneller’s history of Austria was condemned as Jacobin, for instance, because it did not sufficiently praise the monarchy or the church, while Schiller’s William Tell was so drastically reworked by the censors that audiences could not recognize it as the piece which had excited Berlin in 1804. Similarly, Franz Grillparzer’s play, King Ottokar’s Happiness and End was held up for two years because police worried that Ottokar’s divorce from Margarette might somehow remind Austrians of Napoleon and Josephine.101
In the third section, the parliaments were brought to their knees. A unanimous vote was required
to make important decisions and the bodies were not allowed to debate or discuss anything; their
only power was with a vote and even that power was only symbolic. In fact, all princes were
prohibited from accepting any constitution “that would limit or hinder them in the fulfilment of
their duties to the Confederation”.102 Thus, the voice of the people was feebly heard and only in
yeas or nays. General Gneisenau, after whom the Berliner Gneisenaustraße Strasse is named was
general perceived as free-thinking and progressive but had this to say of the parliamentarians:
“the demand for a constitution is getting dangerously out of hand, and some Jacobin yeast is
mixing in with it”.103 Brose writes that “the Carlsbad Decrees represented a sword of Damocles
which could fall at any time on the Grand Duchy”104 and were not abrogated until after 1848.
101 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 94-95.
102 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. Page 408. Print.103 Walter M. Simon, The Failure of the Prussian Reform Movement 1807-1819 (New York, 1971). Print. Pages
134-135.104 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 95.
45
Thus, even with the developments in the intellectual and political spheres,
socioeconomically the confederation was limited and with the Carlsbad Decrees, all other
activity was barred from coming to fruition.
D. 1830-1840—Height of Republican Favoritism
Following the changing political culture of the post-Napoleonic Era, 1830-1840 was a
time in which saloons were abuzz with discussion and town squares were hosts of democratic
demonstrations. If traditional republicanism and radical revolutionary action were ever valued,
this was the time. I will give a brief background on the socioeconomic and political conditions of
the time and then discuss the various arenas in which Germans were politically engaged.
Similar to Italy, Germany was one of the last western European countries to industrialize.
They were not ignorant; they were cautious. Brose writes that “the industrial revolution did not
occur automatically or inevitably—it was a hotly debated political question that divided
cultivated bourgeois and aristocratic fellow-travelers even more than it had the propertied
bourgeoisie”.105 Austria’s Metternich was particularly skeptical of the movement and heavily
resisted the industrial tides that were coming in from England. The opening of the Bayerische
Ludwigseisenbahn (Bavarian Ludwig Railway connecting Nuremberg and Fürth) on December
7, 1835 is generally marked as the first steam-hauled railway in German history.106 Its use and
popularity, however, would have to wait. The nobility and Austro-Prussian monarchs were far
too enamored with the economically inefficient canal projects. For example, The Ludwig Canal
105 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 216-217.
106 David J. S. King, "The Ideology Behind a Business Activity: The Case of the Nuremberg-Fürth Railway," . Business and Economic History, 1991, Vol. 20, pp 162-170
46
(named after King Ludwig I of Bavaria) connecting Bamberg and Kelheim took priority over
other major railroad projects. This was greatly due to the fact that railroad industrialization was a
liberal value not shared by the conservative leadership. Constant clash between liberal
economists such as Friedrich List and staunch conservatives such as the Metternich
Administration delayed railroad industrialization, for the most part, until the decades to follow.
A second aspect of the time was the heightened migration from the land to the cities.
With this also came steady economic restructuring whose investments began to favor
manufacturing over agricultural production. In the years following this decade, the agricultural
share of investment decreased from 58% to 29%.107 As people and production moved from the
land and into the cities so did the discourse. As I will highlight in the following paragraphs, the
majority of middle class Germans became more connected to the political environment of the
time and as a result critically engaged in discussion and demonstration.
Though the Carlsbad Decrees significantly hampered the existence of singing groups,
gymnastics clubs, and fraternities, they were not dead. They simply moved into more private and
secretive spheres. The singing clubs would gather in forest clearings “away from the threatening
rumblings of early industrialization, choirs of fifty to one hundred small-town burghers raised
their male voices in four-part harmonious songs like Die Wacht am Rhein, Schleswig-Holstein
meerumschlungen, and Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles”.108 These poems and songs sought
to envision a future, unified Germany. Would it be with or without their hereditary monarchs?
Similar discussion of republicanism and its manifestation in reality took place in saloons or
private estates. The saloon culture, growing since the 1820s, was now a popular scene for like-
107 Pierenkemper, Toni, and Richard H. Tilly. The German Economy During the Nineteenth Century. New York: Berghahn, 2004. Print. Pages 134-135.
108 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 210-211.
47
minded and relaxed discussion. When Francis died in 1835, his intellectually and mentally
disabled (due to Down Syndrome-Trisomy 21) son Ferdinand took the throne (as the hereditary,
monarchical tradition dictated). Though a regency was established in order to keep Ferdinand
from the public as much as possible, the administration struggled to establish aristocratic
legitimacy and it was by no means ignored. Germans sat around a dimly lit table in a pub and
discussed the recent news. On the whole, the death of Francis and his less than fortunate
succession resulted in a declining “dignity of [the] monarch” and greater discussion of the
legitimacy of a hereditary king.109 Political discussion also took place in the private estates of
different coteries. After the Hambach Festival (which I will highlight in the following paragraph)
individuals such as Johann von Itzstein continued political discussion in his home at Hallgarten
where politically interested men spoke openly and freely about the merits of republicanism.110
Most prominently republican were the demonstrations at this time. The Hambach Fest is
perhaps the most famous demonstration preceding the 1848/49 March Revolutions. On May 22,
1832, 25,000 nationalists paraded to the Hambach Castle which stood in ruins. Speeches were
made, songs were sung, and general protest demonstrations were held in support of German
unity and freedom. The result of the Hambach Fest, unfortunately, were tighter restrictions from
the Metternich Administration. Fearing more radicalism following the Hambach Fest, ten acts
were passed to quell the revolutionaries and tighten the Carlsbad Decrees. Ten days after the
Hambach Fest, “the so-called Ten Acts [were passed and] reinforced many provisions of the
Carlsbad Decrees such as university surveillance, strict censorship, and mutually military
assistance to quell disturbances. The acts also banned all political clubs and assemblies, forbade
the display of illegal insignia and flags, and obligated states to exchange police information on
109 C.A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918 (New York, 1969). Print. Page 304.110 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 208-209.
48
subversive activities”.111 The already stringent monarchy was tightening its authoritarian hold
even more.
Other demonstrations took form as protests and strikes. From Leipzig to Hesse-Kassel to
Aachen, peasants were destroying manorial records and shaking the cities with their bread riots.
In Brunswick, an irate mob torched the Ducal Palace after an officer keeping watch over the
palace spoke condescendingly to the crowd. Interesting, however, is the motive behind these
demonstrations. When the guard asked “now children, what do you want anyway?” the reply
was, “bread and jobs!”112 This indicates that the motive was less republican and more
socioeconomic in nature. They were not revolting to replace the monarchy with a republic; they
were revolting for socioeconomic stability. This is a significant facet of what I am arguing in this
paper: the republican varietal that was developing in Germany at this time was illiberal. Several
other demonstrations occurred throughout Cologne, Elberfeld, Chemnitz and Göttingen. In all of
these cases, the Prussian and Austrian military were dispatched in order to crush the
demonstrations resulting in significant loss of peasant life.
A third manifestation of republicanism and radicalism took shape in the parliaments.
Though Metternich and Francis suppressed any and all parliamentary action in Austria, Frederick
William III was less draconian. Prussian liberalism began to flourish as the parliament sought to
extend the “humanitarian concepts of the enlightenment”.113 Liberal parties and factions began to
grow in the Prussian parliament and there was a sense that Frederick William III was more
“interested in balancing the parties, not championing one over the other”.114 The 1831 elections
111 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 162.
112 Treitschke, Heinrich Von. Deutsche Geschichte Im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1879. 4:101. Print.
113 Brose, Eric Dorn. The Politics of Technological Change in Prussia: Out of the Shadow of Antiquity, 1809-1848. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993. 264: N. 51. Print.
114 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 158.
49
gave a significant plurality to liberals which, combined with the flexibility on the king’s part,
resulted in greater discussion and critical analysis of the possibility of a republican state led by a
monarch but checked and balanced by a constitution. The Saxon diet, contained within the
Prussian kingdom, was relentless and persistent, demanding progressive policies without taking
no for an answer. As a result, the Prussian parliament began implementing liberal reforms such
as “social parity with the nobility, representative bodies and constitutionalism, German economic
integration, and a more genuine form of political unification than the moribund
Confederation”.115 We must note, however, that these reforms were a result of structured and
moderated action. Brose writes that “liberals possessed no enthusiasm for revolution. Violence
would only disrupt the social order and threaten their own accomplishments”.116 This
phenomenon will become very important in the last segment of this intellectual history and my
following explanation as to why the Frankfurter Parliament splintered so easily.
While Austria became more and more repressive, republican demonstrations, discussions,
and parliamentarianism flourished in Prussia.
E. 1840-1849—The Shift to an Illiberal Republicanism and Moderate Revolution
1840-1848 witnessed the continued discussion and demonstration prevalent in the previous
decade. However, republican attitudes began shifting to a more illiberal variety. This is evident
in 1. A prioritization of economic progress over republican ideals 2. A growing fear of
parliamentary tyranny instead of monarchical tyranny and 3. Significant backlash against radical
revolutionary activity.
115 IBID. Page 195.116 IBID. Page 195.
50
The socioeconomic conditions in the kingdoms of Austria and Prussia were satisfactory for
the middle class and dismal for the lower class. Peasants struggled under heavy tax burdens and
an exploitive cottage-manufacturing industry in “which noblemen and wealthy bourgeois
received the lion’s share of the spoils”.117 A growing number began moving to the cities as their
farms and family businesses crumbled. The population was exponentially growing more than the
agriculture and manufacturing industry could provide and as a result, many “slipped into a
desperate life of begging, prostitution, traffic in children, poaching, wood stealing, crop robbing,
or more violent crime. One contemporary estimated that a quarter of Berlin’s population in the
mid-1840s existed in this underworld of hunger, shame, and brutality. Another study of Hesse in
1846/47 found that one-third of the depressed farmers and town craftsmen could no longer
support themselves”.118
The Economic Recession of 1844 only made things worse. The recession was partially a
result of recessions in The United States and Britain that led to a chained, market shock and
domestic potato and grain crop failure in 1846. As a result, potato and grain exports dramatically
fell and the Austro-Prussian economies severely contracted. This was a major cause of the 1844
Silesian Weaver Revolt. Jurg K Siegenthaler cinematically highlights this demonstration in his
film The Weavers. Siegenthaler recounts the “crowds of weavers [that] attacked homes and
warehouses, destroyed machinery, and demanded money from local merchants”.119 Soon
thereafter, the military was called to quell the disturbance which resulted in the deaths of 11
demonstrators and the flogging or imprisonment of several others. After the 1844 Silesian
Weaver Revolt, workers—mostly journeymen, cigar workers, and other artisanal toilers who had
tasted and rejected the new industrial style of work—began to form small, secret associations to 117Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 220.118 IBID. Page 221.119 Siegenthaler, Jurg. K. The Weavers. Play/Film. 1892.
51
fight back”.120 Stephan Born’s founding of “Der Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeiterverbrüderung”
(The Brotherhood of the Workers) is one such example.121 Loosely formed in the early 1840s, the
organization grew to over 15,000 and was the largest unified workers union of the decade. The
Brotherhood of the Workers along with other more Marxist organizations, however, are an
indication of a prioritization of economic wellbeing over political freedom. This more illiberal
perspective is evident in one of the first rebellions on March 2, 1848. A crowd of 30,000
vehement peasants marched on Wiesbaden, demanding that Duke Adolf of Nassau accept their
constitution that had the main goal of abolishing serfdom.122 It seems the peasants of Wiesbaden
were behind on the reforms that took place in the previous decades, but more interesting is their
rebellious intent. They were not clamoring at the Duke’s gates demanding a parliament or voting
rights; they were demanding economic liberation. I find it important to note Marx and Engels’s
Communist Manifesto at this juncture. Originally published in London in late February, the
manifesto did not make its way to the German confederation until April at which time it was not
publicized because it was being corrected for printing and punctuation mistakes.123 As a result,
the manifesto was not officially released in Germany until May of 1848 at which point Brose
writes that it had “appeared too late in the 1840s to turn the continent upside down”.124
A second significant shift in republican attitudes towards a more illiberal variety was the
growing fear of parliamentary tyranny instead of monarchical tyranny. Traditional, western
styled republicanism—as I highlighted in my Chapter V. Background on Republicanism—grew
120 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 214.
121 Stephan Born: Erinnerungen eines Achtundvierzigers. Georg Heinrich Meyer, Leipzig 1893. Print. Page 65.122 Wiesbaden, Chronologie Der Stadtsgeschichte 1848. 1848: Die Forderungen Der Nassauer. Wiesbaden.de,
2016. Web. <http://www.wiesbaden.de/kultur/stadtgeschichte/chronologie/1848.php>.123 Laski, Harold (1948). "Introduction". Communist Manifesto: Socialist Landmark. George Allen and Unwin. Page
22. Print.124 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 219.
52
out of both a fear and a bitterness of unwieldy monarchs. The American Revolution was in great
part founded on domestic animosity for an unchecked King George III. The French Revolution
was enflamed by the ignorance of Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette. But the average
German at this time did not feel that way about their monarch. Instead, we see quite the opposite
attitude. When considering the merits of a republic, most Germans were more afraid of what it
wouldn’t be able to control: the chaos of the masses. Sheehan unpacks this phenomenon when he
writes that “even [Karl von] Rotteck, who professed to believe that a republic was the best
governmental form, maintained that, if the executive did not retain ‘a certain independence’ from
the legislature, republican institutions would remain ‘dangerous and unstable’. Most liberals
were more insistent that the ultimate authority should not reside the people or their elected
representatives”.125
This fear of the legislature and general masses is mirrored in an anonymous essay entitled
“Verfassungsfrage” published in 1846 and immediately popularized. The author wrote that it
would be best if the parliament was incapable of making political decisions because there was a
good chance it would “make mistakes and earn the enmity of the crowd”. 126 This fear of the
parliament making mistakes is what led most Germans at the time to put their faith in the
monarchy. Sheehan writes that “deeply rooted fears about the implications of popular rule and a
pervasive unwillingness to challenge the ultimate authority of the state”127 led most Germans to
favor the status quo. Unwillingness to challenge the authority of the state did not grow out of fear
or intimidation. Quite the contrary. Both moderate and liberal Germans believed that the state
was the safest bulwark against the barbarism of the French Revolution. A prominent lawyer and
professor, Karl Salomo Zachariä von Lingenthal wrote that “the hereditary rule [erbliche
125 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. 600. Print.126 Anon., Verfassungsfrage,” DV (1846), pp. 309 ff.127 Sheehan, James J. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1978. Page 48. Print.
53
Einherrschaft] relates to the representative institutions as stability to change, rest to movement,
nature to art, unity to diversity, public power to public freedom”.128 Zachariä saw the concept of
the state and hereditary monarch not just as stable, but as beautiful. This more personal, aesthetic
view of monarchism is evident in many intellectuals’ comparison of the state to the church.
Writer and industrial developer Friedrich Harkort wrote that “the state has to replace the church
in matters of education in order for its independence to be assured”;129 theologian Friedrich
Schleiermacher wrote that it is “the state [which] joins the individual to the universal good and
the divine order”.130 Since the church was so dominant and central to both Protestants and
Catholics, these claims must be taken with a great degree of gravity. The state was being
compared to a divine institution that was the epicenter of European civilization for centuries.
Respect and admiration for the state and centralized monarchy was only heightened as
Germans looked at France’s history and the contemporary demonstrations of their time. Pflanze
writes that “the reaction to all this frothiness was the worship of positive power, the ‘saving
deed,’ everything authoritative which should effectually balance one’s own weakness and
indecision”.131 In times of chaos and confusion, many revert back to what they know and take
refuge in the status quo. With the strong revolutionary tides coming in, however, both moderates
and liberals needed a productive avenue to channel the lower class’ fervor. Both moderates and
liberals found that the safest way to channel the compounding revolutionary fervor was to
establish a national parliament but one that was severely restricted and only comprised of the
educated: a wholly illiberal republican institution. Bideleux and Jeffries highlight this excellently
in their historiography A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. They write:
128 Fritz Fischer, Der Deutsche Protestantismus und die Politik im 19. Jahrhundert HZ 171, no. 3 (May 1951): 477.129 Harkort, Schriften. Paderborn, F. Schöningh.Germany. (1969), p. 17.130 Fritz Fischer, Der Deutsche Protestantismus und die Politik im 19. Jahrhundert HZ 171, no. 3 (May 1951): 477.131 Pflanze, Otto. State and Nation in Germany: The Unification of German, 1848-1871. N.p.: Huntington, N.Y. : R.
E. Krieger Pub., 1979. N. Print. Page 12.
54
“In 1848, like their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, Austrian 'liberals' wanted neither
popular sovereignty nor universal rights of political participation. On the contrary, they desired a
constitution which would enhance the rights and privileges of the 'respectable' propertied classes
by guaranteeing them the prerogative of co-operating with the monarch in making laws and
approving taxes and by prohibiting royal violations of their rights as property-owning, taxpaying
and law-abiding subjects. Thus 'the moderate liberals of the March revolution...merely wanted a
parliament of property-holders to check the Emperor's absolute powers and advise him on
legislation".132
Third, and lastly, a significant factor preventing the establishment of a republic was the
growing preference for a moderate revolution instead of a radical one. This preference began to
grow because of two factors: 1. Respected voices in Germany were speaking out against
radicalism and 2. There was not a strong enough motive among revolutionaries.
The 1840s were a truly unique time in the evolution of German republicanism because it was
in this decade that the political philosophy experienced the most debate and critical thinking. On
the whole, however, the philosophy became dependent on the method of implementation. If the
confederation were to unify and democratize its government, how would they go about it? The
over-arching opinion was that they could go about it in a civilized manner. Georg Hegel was a
trusted and well esteemed voice at the time who did not believe that unrest or rebellion was
necessary. Though many scholars argue that Hegel’s voice was dying out as Marx and Engels
began turning his ideas on its head, Marx and Engels really did not enter the picture until after
1848 as previously mentioned. Paul Achatius Pfizer was a strong voice alongside Hegel who
argued that the monarch should have the strength to “grasp or pull in the reigns every time the
132 Bideleux, Robert, and Ian Jeffries. A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change. N.p.: Psychology, 1998. N. pag. Print. Page 321.
55
Volk lacks the decisive will, or because of factionalism or flaccidity, approaches the dangers of
dissolution”.133 Sheehan analyzes Pfizer as well as Carl Welcker when he writes that “liberals
rarely believed in the right of rebellion; most distrusted democracy; almost all condemned the
mob, which Welcker regarded as ‘a more savage enemy of the common good than any other’”.134
Even liberals could not fathom the notion of destruction without renewal. To them, violence and
mob mentality were merely demolition with nothing to replace the flames and ash. Heinrich von
Gagern—president of the Frankfurter Parliament—was one of these liberals. Brose writes that
“moderates around Heinrich von Gagern agreed on the need for electoral legitimacy for German
institutions, but vehemently opposed the idea of accelerating a revolution which had already
generated frightening scenes of social violence and destruction of property. The Germans, he
said, were not ripe for a republic. It was time to work with kings who were making changes, not
to abolish institutions that had stood the test of time”.135 Working with kings assumes that the
government will remain the same but the approach among reformers different. This, however,
sounds very different from an American or French-styled revolution. As Pflanze puts it, “the
German democratic movement of 1848 wished to achieve a gentle victory”.136
A radical revolution carries with it a desperate motive. But if Pflanze was correct, and I do
believe he is, the Germans were not quite desperate enough. The argument that the Germans
were relatively appeased by political and economic conditions is not a new one. Golo Mann
notes in his book The History of Germany Since 1789 that the “conditions in Germany in 1848
differed fundamentally from those in France in the late eighteenth century. There was no
bankrupt administration on the verge of collapse; the Austrians were not badly governed and the
133 Pfizer, Paul Achatius. Gedanken Uber Recht, Staat Und Kirche. Stuttgart: Hallberger, 1842. Page 340. Print.134 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. 601-602. Print.135 Brose, Eric Dorn. German History, 1789-1871: From the Holy Roman Empire to the Bismarckian Reich.
Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997. Print. Page 250.136 Pflanze, Otto. State and Nation in Germany: The Unification of German, 1848-1871. N.p.: Huntington, N.Y. : R.
E. Krieger Pub., 1979. N. Print. Page 14.
56
Prussians were well governed…On the contrary, the Germans rebelled against the effective,
often all too effective bureaucratic state.” This would follow Pflanze’s claim that Germans only
wanted a moderate revolution. But if at the beginning of this section I wrote that socioeconomic
conditions were so poor that a significant portion of Germans were living in an underworld of
hunger and prostitution, how could struggling Germans not be desperate enough? Herein lies the
illiberal republican varietal that I am seeking to illuminate: both lower and middle class Germans
revolted in order to socioeconomically elevate themselves, not to replace their government with a
republic. The moderate revolution was organized in order to amendment to the political order,
not eliminate it. If this argument holds water, then we ought to see very little revolution
following the Frankfurter Parliament because the recession was receding and industries were
flourishing. Sheehan writes that “between 1850 and 1869, the production of coal grew from 5.1
to 26.7 million metric tons, pig iron from .2 to 1.4; steam power capacities increased from
260,000 to 2,480,000 horse power”137 reflecting heightened industrial output which would have
offered greater jobs following significant worker protection rights. Indeed we see very little
revolutionary activity follow the Frankfurter Parliament.
By the time 1848 rolled around, republican attitudes had shifted to a more illiberal variety,
evident in 1. A prioritization of economic progress over republican ideals 2. A growing fear of
parliamentary tyranny instead of monarchical tyranny and 3. Significant backlash against radical
revolutionary activity.
VI. Concluding Remarks With an Extended Analysis and Application
137 Sheehan, James J. German History, 1770-1866. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989. Print.
57
The leading question of this project has always been: why did the Frankfurter Parliament
dissolve so quickly in 1849? Throughout my research, I have acknowledged that complex,
historical movements like the 1848/49 March Revolutions are impacted by multiple factors. No
one dimensional narrative suffices. But even after reading the vast amount of historiographies on
this subject, I was continually left unfulfilled. The story did not seem complete to me. I was
fascinated by the fact that the revolutionaries did not launch a second wave after the Paulskirche
Constitution was rejected. After much thought, I concluded that the revolutionaries were not
truly committed to the movement; they sought to revolt moderately and illiberally. I focused on
republicanism at the beginning of this essay and used it as a fulcrum throughout the intellectual
history because I was making the argument that though republicanism was seriously considered
in Germany from 1787-1848, it was not embraced in the traditional sense. Germans were much
too enamored with the monarchy to replace their long-standing government with a republic. This
was the main reason why the Frankfurter Parliament dissolved so easily; German traditionalism
and conservatism with regard to the monarchy were far too strong.
The argument is neither complex nor popular among the scholarship surrounding this
topic. However, I find the argument crucial in two aspects. The first is that it adds another
dimension to the already prolific scholarship seeking to explain why the movement died so
easily. The second is that the argument was made by analyzing a case study that I believe to be
highly applicable to contemporary democratic movements. Yes, the case study I used is 150
years old. I do not, however, believe that time should disqualify the 19th century German case
study. The various elements I highlighted throughout the intellectual history such as distrust of
the masses, appeasement by the government, prioritizing stability over democracy, and fear of
change are all highly applicable elements in today’s world. In our world today there are a
58
plethora of revolutionary movements challenging the legitimacy of existing state structures. I
comprehend the audacity of this claim, but I am not seeking to immediately apply it to
contemporary revolutions. I do believe, however, that I have adequately laid the groundwork for
the possibility of further research and scholarship. The 19th century German case study supports
the claim that a traditional republic is not a model that works for everyone nor are radical
revolutions.
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