had resisted, might have been beaten; Berlin might
have been bombarded, and many hundreds might have been killed, without
preventing the ultimate victory of the Royalist party. But that was no
reason why they should surrender their arms at once. A well-contested
defeat is a fact of as much revolutionary importance as an easily-won
victory. The defeats of Paris in June, 1848, and of Vienna in October,
certainly did far more in revolutionizing the minds of the people of
these two cities than the victories of February and March. The
Assembly and the people of Berlin would, probably, have shared the
fate of the two towns above-named; but they would have fallen
gloriously, and would have left behind themselves, in the minds of the
survivors, a wish of revenge which in revolutionary times is one of
the highest incentives to energetic and passionate action. It is a
matter of course that, in every struggle, he who takes up the gauntlet
risks being beaten; but is that a reason why he should confess himself
beaten, and submit to the yoke without drawing the sword?

In a revolution he who commands a decisive position and surrenders it,
instead of forcing the enemy to try his hands at an assault,
invariably deserves to be treated as a traitor.

The same decree of the King of Prussia which dissolved the Constituent
Assembly also proclaimed a new Constitution, founded upon the draft
which had been made by a Committee of that Assembly, but enlarging in
some points the powers of the Crown, and rendering doubtful in others
those of the Parliament. This Constitution established two Chambers,
which were to meet soon for the purpose of confirming and revising it.

We need hardly ask where the German National Assembly was during the
"legal and peaceful" struggle of the Prussian Constitutionalists. It
was, as usual, at Frankfort, occupied with passing very tame
resolutions against the proceedings of the Prussian Government, and
admiring the "imposing spectacle of the passive, legal, and unanimous
resistance of a whole people against brutal force." The Central
Government sent commissioners to Berlin to intercede between the
Ministry and the Assembly; but they met the same fate as their
predecessors at Olmuetz, and were politely shown out. The Left of the
National Assembly, _i.e._, the so-called Radical party, sent also
their commissioners; but after having duly convinced themselves of the
utter helplessness of the Berlin Assembly, and confe