hrough their
promulgation was enormous.

The spread of constitutionalism was paralleled by the gradual
creation, after 1818, of the Zollverein. This was a customs union,
taking its origin in the establishment of free trade throughout the
kingdom of Prussia, and extended from state to state until by 1842 the
whole of Germany had been included save the Hanseatic towns,
Mecklenburg, Hanover, and Austria. The union was maintained for
purposes that were primarily commercial, but by accustoming the people
to concerted effort and by emphasizing constantly their common
interests it must be regarded as having contributed in a very (p. 198)
important way to the growth of national consciousness and solidarity.
Under its agency the lesser states were schooled deliberately in
independence of Austria and in reliance upon Prussian leadership.

II. THE CREATION OF THE EMPIRE

*206. The Revolution of 1848.*--From 1815 onwards the Liberals
advocated, in season and out, the conversion of the Confederation into
a more substantial union under a constitutional style of government.
Aside from the promulgation of a number of new state constitutions,
the effects of the revolutionary movements of 1830 were, in Germany,
of little consequence. But during the period 1830-1848 conditions so
developed that only the stimulus of a near-by liberal demonstration
was required to precipitate to the east of the Rhine a popular
uprising of revolutionary proportions. In the constitutional history
of the German countries of central Europe few periods are to be
assigned larger importance than the years 1848-1849. Taking advantage
of the interest created by the contemporary revolution in France, the
Liberal leaders began by convening at Heidelberg, March 31, 1848, a
_Vorparlament_, or preliminary meeting, by which arrangements were
effected for the election, by manhood suffrage, of a national assembly
of some six hundred members whose business it should be to draw up a
constitution for a united German nation. This assembly, reluctantly
authorized by the Diet, convened May 18 in the free city of Frankfort.
The task to be accomplished was formidable and much valuable time was
consumed in learned but irrelevant disputation. In the end it was
decided that not the whole of Austria, but only the German portions,
should be admitted to the new union; that there should be established
a full-fledged parliamentary system, with a responsible ministry; and
that th