to fail, because they cannot foresee and provide for all the
contingencies which may interfere with the application of the theories.
Moreover, in the case of Prussia, as not in that of the United States,
the constitution was not made by the people for themselves, but given to
them by a power standing over against them. There was, therefore, not
only a possibility, as in any case there might be, that the instrument
could be variously interpreted on account of the different modes of
thinking and difference of personal interests, which always affect men's
opinions; but there was here almost a certainty that this would be the
case on account of the gulf of separation which, in spite of all the
bridges which often are built over it, divides a monarch, especially an
absolute, hereditary monarch, from his subjects. In the case before us,
it is certain that the king conceded more than he wished to concede, and
that the people received less than they wished to receive. That they
should agree in their understanding of the constitution is therefore not
at all to be expected. The most that the well wishers of the land could
have hoped was that the misunderstandings would not be radical, and that
in the way of practical experience the defects of the constitution might
be detected and remedied, and the mutual relations of the rulers and the
ruled become mutually understood and peacefully acquiesced in.

What the Prussian Conservatives so often insist on, viz., that a
constitutional government should have been gradually developed, not
suddenly substituted for a form of government radically different, is
therefore by no means without truth. Whether we are to conclude that the
fault has been in the process not beginning sooner, or merely in its
being too rapid, is perhaps a question in which we and they might
disagree. On the supposition that the present state of intelligence
furnishes a sufficient basis for a constitutional government, it would
seem as though the last fifty years has been a period long enough in
which to put it into successful operation. All that the present
generation know of politics has certainly been learned within that time:
if the mere practical exercise of political rights is all that is needed
in order to develop the new system, there might at least an excellent
beginning have been made long before 1850. When we consider, therefore,
that the Government, after taking the initiatory steps in promoting this
develop