me.

But why, among all impossible charges, does the public prosecutor
choose to bring precisely the most impossible? Why does he make this
substitution as to the point of my attack? I point out that the
three-class system of elections is an injustice because it makes an
essentially innocent difference in wealth a legal qualification for
participation in the direction of public affairs; whereupon this
envenomed accusation is brought against me that I have instigated the
unpropertied classes to hatred and contempt of the propertied.

Is there, then, no remedy, Gentlemen, against such a public defamation
of one's name and fame?

Can we say that among us the introduction, of the three-class system
of elections is to be laid at the door of the propertied classes or
the commonalty? Something of that kind might be said of the French
_bourgeoisie_. In France the property qualification and rating was
introduced as long ago as the revolutionary _Assemblee Constituante_.
But the like has not been done by the German.

When the Prussian bourgeoisie came into power through the March
revolution of 1848 it introduced universal and equal suffrage by the
law of the 8th of April, 1848. The German bourgeoisie at St. Paul's
Church, Frankfort, enacted universal equal suffrage.

The three-class system of elections which we now have, was arbitrarily
imposed, imposed by the government.

Now, why does the public prosecutor shelter the government behind the
backs of the Prussian _bourgeoisie? A tout seigneur tout honneur_![57]

It is the Prussian government, not the propertied classes, that must
for all time and in the eyes of all people bear the responsibility of
this arbitrarily imposed three-class system of elections.

But, whatever may have been the reasons which decided the public
prosecutor to make this very singular substitution of grievances in
his indictment--and we may perhaps presently come to find out what his
reasons were--at any rate, this second ground of the indictment also
fails. There has been no incitement against the propertied classes of
the community; there has been no instigation against those against
whom I am accused of instigating to hatred and contempt.

The third ground on which the indictment is brought, the charge of
having endangered the public peace, fails likewise.

As to this third count:

Section 100 says: "Any person who endangers the public peace by
publicly inciting the subjects of the State