(p. 245)

THE CONSTITUTION OF PRUSSIA-THE CROWN AND THE MINISTRY

I. THE GERMAN STATES AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS

*261. Variations of Type.*--Within the bounds of Germany to-day there
are twenty-five states and one Imperial territory with certain
attributes of statehood, Alsace-Lorraine. During the larger portion of
the nineteenth century each of these states (and of the several which
no longer exist) was possessed of substantial sovereignty, and each
maintained its own arrangements, respecting governmental forms and
procedure. Under the leadership of Prussia, as has been pointed out,
the loose Confederation of 1815 was transformed, during the years
1866-1871, into an Imperial union, federal but yet vigorous and
indestructible, and to the constituted authorities of this Empire was
intrusted an enormous aggregate of governmental powers. The powers
conferred were, however, not wholly abstracted from the original
prerogatives of the individual states. In a very appreciable measure
they were powers, rather, of a supplementary character, by virtue of
which the newly created central government was enabled to do, on a
broadly national scale, what, in the lack of any such central
government, there would have been neither means of doing, nor occasion
for doing, at all. Only at certain points, as, for example, in respect
to the levying of customs duties and of taxes, was the original
independence of the individual state seriously impaired by the terms
of the new arrangement.

The consequence is that, speaking broadly, each of the German states
maintains to this day a government which is essentially complete within
itself. No one of these governments covers quite all of the ground which
falls within the range of jurisdiction of a sovereign state; each is
cut into at various points by the superior authority of the Empire;
but each is sufficiently ample to be capable of continuing to run,
were all of the other governments of Germany instantly to be blotted
out.[357] Of the twenty-five state governments, three--those of the
free cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Luebeck--are aristocratic (p. 246)
republics; all the others are monarchies. Among the monarchies there
are four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wuerttemberg; six
grand-duchies: Baden, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz,
Oldenburg, and Saxe-Weimar; five duchies: Anhalt, Brunswick,
Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and