organ, the Diet, never represented
German unity. The very highest pitch to which centralization was ever
carried in Germany was the establishment of the Zollverein; by this
the States on the North Sea were also forced into a Customs Union of
their own, Austria remaining wrapped up in her separate prohibitive
tariff. Germany had the satisfaction to be, for all practical purposes
divided between three independent powers only, instead of between
thirty-six. Of course the paramount supremacy of the Russian Czar, as
established in 1814, underwent no change on this account.

Having drawn these preliminary conclusions from our premises, we shall
see, in our next, how the aforesaid various classes of the German
people were set into movement one after the other, and what character
the movement assumed on the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1848.

LONDON, September, 1851.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The "eleven men" were: Dupont de l'Eure, Lamartine, Cremieux,
Aarago, Ledru Rollin, Garnier-Pages, Marrast, Clocon, Louis Blanc, and
Albert.

[5] The "Zollverein" was the German Customs Union. It was originally
founded in 1827, and largely extended after the war of 1866. Since the
unification of Germany as an "Empire" in 1871, the States belonging to
the Zollverein have been included in the German Empire. The object of
the Zollverein was to obtain a uniform rate of customs duties all over
Germany.

II.

THE PRUSSIAN STATE.

OCTOBER 28th, 1851.

The political movement of the middle class or bourgeoisie, in Germany,
may be dated from 1840. It had been preceded by symptoms showing that
the moneyed and industrial class of that country was ripening into a
state which would no longer allow it to continue apathetic and passive
under the pressure of a half-feudal, half-bureaucratic Monarchism. The
smaller princes of Germany, partly to insure to themselves a greater
independence against the supremacy of Austria and Prussia, or against
the influence of the nobility of their own States, partly in order to
consolidate into a whole the disconnected provinces united under their
rule by the Congress of Vienna, one after the other granted
constitutions of a more or less liberal character. They could do so
without any danger to themselves; for if the Diet of the
Confederation, this mere puppet of Austria and Prussia, was to
encroach upon their independence as sovereigns, they knew that in
resist