r have to go
on to the more advanced stage of Unitarian republicanism, or to
relapse into the old clerico-feudal and bureaucratic _regime_. At all
events, the real, decisive struggle was yet to come; the events of
March had only engaged the combat.

Austria and Prussia being the two ruling states of Germany, every
decisive revolutionary victory in Vienna or Berlin would have been
decisive for all Germany. And as far as they went, the events of
March, 1848, in these two cities, decided the turn of German affairs.
It would, then, be superfluous to recur to the movements that occurred
in the minor States; and we might, indeed, confine ourselves to the
consideration of Austrian and Prussian affairs exclusively, if the
existence of these minor states had not given rise to a body which
was, by its very existence, a most striking proof of the abnormal
situation of Germany and of the incompleteness of the late revolution;
a body so abnormal, so ludicrous by its very position, and yet so full
of its own importance, that history will, most likely, never afford a
pendant to it. This body was the so-called _German National Assembly_
at Frankfort-on-Main.

After the popular victories of Vienna and Berlin, it was a matter of
course that there should be a Representative Assembly for all Germany.
This body was consequently elected, and met at Frankfort, by the side
of the old Federative Diet. The German National Assembly was expected,
by the people, to settle every matter in dispute, and to act as the
highest legislative authority for the whole of the German
Confederation. But, at the same time, the Diet which had convoked it
had in no way fixed its attributions. No one knew whether its decrees
were to have force of law, or whether they were to be subject to the
sanction of the Diet, or of the individual Governments. In this
perplexity, if the Assembly had been possessed of the least energy, it
would have immediately dissolved and sent home the Diet--than which
no corporate body was more unpopular in Germany--and replaced it by a
Federal Government, chosen from among its own members. It would have
declared itself the only legal expression of the sovereign will of the
German people, and thus have attached legal validity to every one of
its decrees. It would, above all, have secured to itself an organized
and armed force in the country sufficient to put down any opposition
on the parts of the Governments. And all this was easy, very ea