contradiction as it was, it yet was the most Liberal Constitution in
all Germany. Its greatest fault was, that it was a mere sheet of
paper, with no power to back its provisions.

Under these circumstances it was natural that the so-called Democratic
party, that is, the mass of the petty trading class, should cling to
the Imperial Constitution. This class had always been more forward in
its demands than the Liberal-Monarchico-Constitutional bourgeoisie; it
had shown a bolder front, it had very often threatened armed
resistance, it was lavish in its promises to sacrifice its blood and
its existence in the struggle for freedom; but it had already given
plenty of proofs that on the day of danger it was nowhere, and that it
never felt more comfortable than the day after a decisive defeat, when
everything being lost, it had at least the consolation to know that
somehow or other the matter _was_ settled. While, therefore, the
adhesion of the large bankers, manufacturers, and merchants was of a
more reserved character, more like a simple demonstration in favor of
the Frankfort Constitution, the class just beneath them, our valiant
Democratic shopkeepers, came forward in grand style, and, as usual,
proclaimed they would rather spill their last drop of blood than let
the Imperial Constitution fall to the ground.

Supported by these two parties, the bourgeois adherents of the
Constitutional Royalty, and the more or less Democratic shopkeepers,
the agitation for the immediate establishment of the Imperial
Constitution gained ground rapidly, and found its most powerful
expression in the Parliaments of the several States. The Chambers of
Prussia, of Hanover, of Saxony, of Baden, of Wuertemberg, declared in
its favor. The struggle between the Governments and the Frankfort
Assembly assumed a threatening aspect.

The Governments, however, acted rapidly. The Prussian Chambers were
dissolved, anti-constitutionally, as they had to revise and confirm
the Constitution; riots broke out at Berlin, provoked intentionally by
the Government, and the next day, the 28th of April, the Prussian
Ministry issued a circular note, in which the Imperial Constitution
was held up as a most anarchical and revolutionary document, which it
was for the Governments of Germany to remodel and purify. Thus Prussia
denied, point-blank, that sovereign constituent power which the wise
men at Frankfort had always boasted of, but never established. Thus a
Congress