ng
their debates to the "rights of the princes" to the exclusion of the
"rights of the people." His services in the war of liberation were
rewarded with an extension of territory and the title of grand-duke; but
his liberal attitude had already made him suspect, and his subsequent
action brought him still further into antagonism to the reactionary
powers. He was the first of the German princes to grant a liberal
constitution to his state under Article XIII. of the Act of
Confederation (May 5, 1816); and his concession of full liberty to the
press made Weimar for a while the focus of journalistic agitation
against the existing order. Metternich dubbed him contemptuously "der
grosse Bursche" for his patronage of the "revolutionary"
_Burschenschaften_; and the celebrated "festival" held at the Wartburg
by his permission in 1818, though in effect the mildest of political
demonstrations, brought down upon him the wrath of the great powers.
Karl August, against his better judgment, was compelled to yield to the
remonstrances of Prussia, Austria and Russia; the liberty of the press
was again restricted in the grand-duchy, but, thanks to the good
understanding between the grand-duke and his people, the regime of the
Carlsbad Decrees pressed less heavily upon Weimar than upon other German
states.

Karl August died on the 14th of June 1828. Upon his contemporaries of
the most various types his personality made a great impression. Karl von
Dalberg, the prince-primate, who owed the coadjutorship of Mainz to the
duke's friendship, said that he had never met a prince "with so much
understanding, character, frankness and true-heartedness"; the Milanese,
when he visited their city, called him the "uomo principe"; and Goethe
himself said of him "he had the gift of discriminating intellects and
characters and setting each one in his place. He was inspired by the
noblest good-will, the purest humanity, and with his whole soul desired
only what was best. There was in him something of the divine. He would
gladly have wrought the happiness of all mankind. And finally, he was
greater than his surroundings,... Everywhere he himself saw and judged,
and in all circumstances his surest foundation was in himself." He left
two sons: Charles Frederick (d. 1853), by whom he was succeeded, and
Bernhard, duke of Saxe-Weimar (1792-1862), a distinguished soldier, who,
after the congress of Vienna, became colonel of a regiment in the
service of the king