ame energy with which he had attacked the extreme Revolution.
The most important debates were those concerning the Constitution; he
took part in them, especially opposing the claim of the Parliament to
refuse taxes. He saw that if the right was given to the Lower House of
voting the taxes afresh every year they would be able to establish a
complete control over the executive government; this he did not wish. He
was willing that they should have the right of discussing and rejecting
any new taxes and also, in agreement with the Crown and the Upper House,
of determining the annual Budget. It was maintained by the Liberals that
the right to reject supplies every year was an essential part of a
constitutional system; they appealed to the practice in England and to
the principles adopted in the French and Belgian Constitutions. Their
argument was that this practice which had been introduced in other
countries must be adopted also in Prussia. It was just one of those
arguments which above all offended Bismarck's Prussian patriotism. Why
should Prussia imitate other countries? Why should it not have its own
Constitution in its own way? Constitution, as he said, was the _mot
d'ordre_ of the day, the word which men used when they were in want of
an argument. "In Prussia that only is constitutional which arises from
the Prussian Constitution; whatever be constitutional in Belgium, or in
France, in Anhalt Dessau, or there where the morning red of Mecklenburg
freedom shines, here that alone is constitutional which rests on the
Prussian Constitution." If he defended the prerogative of the Crown he
defended the Constitution of his country. A constitution is the
collection of rules and laws by which the action of the king is
governed; a state without a constitution is a mere Oriental despotism
where each arbitrary whim of the king is transmuted into action; this
was not what Bismarck desired or defended; there was no danger of this
in Prussia. He did not even oppose changes in the law and practice of
the Constitution; what he did oppose was the particular change which
would transfer the sovereignty to an elected House of Parliament. "It
has been maintained," he once said, "that a constitutional king cannot
be a king by the Grace of God; on the contrary he is it above all
others."

The references to foreign customs were indeed one of the most curious
practices of the time; the matter was once being discussed whether the
Crown had the p