existence a united German nation of substantial
independence and power. In the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna,
promulgated under date of June 9, 1815, there was included the draft
of a constitution, prepared by a committee of the Congress under the
presidency of Count Metternich, in which was laid down the fundamental
law of an entirely new German union. Within Germany proper there were
recognized to be, when the Congress had completed its work of
readjustment, thirty-eight states, of widely varying size, importance,
and condition. Under authorization of the Congress, these states were
now organized, not into an empire with a common sovereign, but into a
_Bund_, or Confederation, whose sole central organ was a _Bundestag_,
or Diet, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main and composed of delegates
commissioned by the sovereigns of the affiliated states and serving
under their immediate and absolute direction. Save only in respect to
certain matters pertaining to foreign relations and war, each of the
thirty-eight states retained its autonomy unimpaired.[277]

[Footnote 277: In 1817 the number was brought up to
39 by the adding of Hesse-Homburg, unintentionally
omitted when the original list was made up. By
successive changes the number was reduced to 33
before the dissolution of the Confederation in
1866.]

*204. The Diet.*--The Diet was in no proper sense a parliamentary body,
but was rather a congress of sovereign states. Nominally, its powers
were large. They included both the regulation of the fundamental law
and the performance of the functions of ordinary legislation. But, in
practice, the authority of the body was meager and exercise of
discretion was absolutely precluded. The members, as delegates of the
princes, spoke and voted only as they were instructed. Questions
relating to the fundamental laws and the organic institutions of the
Confederation and "other arrangements of common interest" were
required to be decided by the Diet as a whole (_in Plenum_), with
voting power distributed among the states, in rough proportion to
their importance. Of the total of 69 votes, six of the principal
states possessed four each. The preparation of measures for discussion
_in Plenum_ was intrusted to the "ordinary assembly," a smaller (p. 196)
gathering in which Austria, Prussia, and nine other states had each