and people are
to sustain to each other. From this point of view it is not difficult to
pass judgment on the general merits of the case. If we inquire where, if
at all, the constitution has been formally violated, there can be no
doubt that the breach has been on the side of the Government. That the
consent of the diet is necessary to the validity act fixing the use of
the public moneys, is expressly stated in the constitution. That the
Government, for a series of years, has appropriated the funds according
to its own will, without obtaining that consent, is an undeniable matter
of fact. It is true that the king and his ministers do not acknowledge
that this is a violation of the constitution, claiming that the duty of
the king to provide in cases of exigency for the maintenance of the
public weal, authorizes him, in the exigency which the obstinacy of the
delegates has brought about, to act on his own responsibility. The
Government must exist, they say, and to this end money must be had; if
the House will not grant it, we must take it. That this is a mere
quibble, especially as the exigency can be as easily ascribed to the
obstinacy of the king as to that of the delegates, may be affirmed by
Liberals with perfect confidence, when, as is actually the case, all
candid Conservatives, even those of the strictest kind, confess that
_formally_, at least, the king has acted unconstitutionally. And, though
in respect to the financial question, they may justify this course while
confessing its illegality, it is not so easy to do so in reference to
the press law made by the king four days after closing the session of
the diet. This law established a censorship of the press, which was
aimed especially against all attacks in the newspapers on the policy
of the Government, the plea being that the Liberal papers were
disturbing the public peace and exciting a democratic spirit. The
unconstitutionality of this act was as palpable as its folly. Only in
case of war or insurrection is any such restriction allowed at all; the
wildest imagination could hardly have declared either war or
insurrection to be then existing. Moreover, even in case of such an
exigency, the king has a right to limit the freedom of the press only
when the diet is not in session and the urgency is too great to make it
safe to wait for it to assemble. But in this call it is manifest not
only that the king was not anxious to have the cooeperation of the
Houses, but