, be it that those principles have
hitherto been observed or not.

What makes the arguments of the Conservatives all the more impertinent,
however, is the fact that the question is no longer whether the
constitution ought to be introduced, but whether, being introduced, it
shall be observed. This is for the stiff royalists not so pleasant a
question. Prussia _is_ a constitutional monarchy; the king has taken an
oath to rule in accordance with the constitution. It may be, undoubtedly
is, true that none of the kings have wished the existence of just such a
limit to their power; but shall they therefore try to evade the
obligation which they have assumed? The Conservatives dare not say that
the constitution ought to be violated, for that would look too much like
the abandonment of their fundamental principle; they also hardly venture
to say that they would prefer to have the king again strictly absolute,
for that would look like favoring regression more than conservatism. Yet
many have the conviction that an absolute monarchy would be preferable
to the present, while the arguments of all have little force except as
they tend to the same conclusion. The point of controversy between them
and their opponents is often represented as being essentially this:
Shall the king of Prussia be made as powerless as the queen of England?
Against such a degradation of the dignity of the house of Hohenzollern
all the convictions and prejudices of the royalists revolt. Such a
surrender of all personal power, they say, and say truly, was not
designed by Frederick William IV. when he gave the constitution; to ask
the king, therefore, in all his measures to be determined by the House
of Delegates, is an unconstitutional demand. It is specially provided
that the _king_ shall appoint and dismiss his own ministers; to ask him,
therefore, to remove them simply because they are unacceptable to the
House of Delegates, is to interfere with the royal prerogatives. The
command of the army and the declaration of war belong only to the king;
to binder him, therefore, in his efforts to maintain the efficiency of
the army, or in his purposes to wage war or abstain from it, is an
overstepping of the limits prescribed to the people's representatives.

We have here hinted at the principal elements in the controversy between
the opposing political parties of Prussia. It is not our object to enter
into the details of the various strifes which have agitated the