t estates of the
nobles of every degree--knights, counts, and princes, without regard
to former differences; and, on the other hand, of the landed property
of the nobles as well as of the peasants.

It is clear at once, then, that this plan, in the last instance,
results in nothing more than still more logical, clear, and equitable
carrying-out of the principle which had formed the basis of the
historical period which was even then approaching its end; that is,
landownership was to be the ruling element and the only condition
which entitled anybody to participation in the government of the
State: that anybody should demand such participation just because he
was a man, because he was a reasonable being, even without owning any
land--this did not occur to the peasants in the remotest degree! For
this the conditions of the time were not sufficiently developed, the
method of thought of the time was not revolutionary enough.

So then this peasant uprising, which came forward externally with such
revolutionary determination, was in its essence completely
reactionary; that is to say, instead of standing upon a new
revolutionary principle, it stood unconsciously on the old,
existing principle of the period which was then just closing; and just
because it was reactionary, while it thought itself revolutionary, did
the peasant uprising fail.

Accordingly, in comparison with the uprising of the peasants as well
as that of the nobles under Franz von Sickingen--both of which had the
principle in common of basing participation in the government, more
definitely than had before been the case, upon landholding--the rising
monarchical idea was relatively a justifiable and revolutionary
factor, since it was based upon the idea of a state sovereignty
independent of landholding, representing the national idea independent
of private property relations; and it was just this which gave it the
power for a victorious development and for the suppression of the
uprising of the peasants and the nobles.

I have gone into this point somewhat explicitly, in the first place to
show the reasonableness and the progress of liberty in the development
of history, even by an example in which this is not at all evident on
superficial observation; in the second place, because historians are
still far from recognizing this reactionary character of the peasant
uprising and the reason for its failure, which lay chiefly in this
aspect; but, rather deceived b