rly distinct from
each other, save as their rulers choose to unite themselves, while yet
each ruler in his own land is independent of the others, and each has
always reason to be jealous of the other, is an impossibility. This
jealousy was conspicuous in the case of Prussia and Austria during the
session of this special diet, in the summer of 1863. It was shared in
Prussia not only by the king and his special political friends, but by
many of the Liberals. It was perhaps in the hope that the national
feeling had received a healthful impulse by the developments of
Austria's ambition to obtain once more the hegemony of Germany, that the
king soon after _dissolved_ the House of Delegates, which in June he had
prorogued. A new election was appointed for October 20. Most strenuous
efforts were made by the Government to secure as favorable a result as
possible. Clergymen were enjoined by the Minister of Instruction to use
their influence in behalf of the Government. Officials were notified
that they would be expected to vote for Conservative candidates, a hint
which in Prussia cannot be so lightly regarded as here, since voting
there is done _viva voce_. But, in spite of all these exertions, the
Progress men in the new House were as overwhelmingly in the majority as
before. On assembling, they reelected the former president, Grabow, by a
vote of two hundred and twenty-four to forty. And the same old strife
began anew.

So little, then, had been accomplished by attempts forcibly to put down
the opposition party. Many newspapers had received the third and last
warning for publishing articles of an incendiary character, though none,
so far as we know, were actually suspended; a professor in Koenigsberg
had been deposed for presiding at a meeting of Liberals; a professor in
Berlin had been imprisoned for publishing a pamphlet against the policy
of the Government. There were even intimations that, unless the
opposition yielded, the king would suspend the constitution, and
dispense entirely with the cooeperation of the Parliament. But whether or
not this was ever thought of, he showed none of this disposition at the
opening of the session. His speech, though containing no concessions,
was mild and conciliatory in tone. Perhaps he saw that a threatening
course could not succeed, and was intending to pursue another. He
declared his purpose to suggest an amendment to the constitution
providing for such cases of disagreement between th