nd who, from the place of their separate meetings, were called the
Gotha party, long before 1848 contemplated a plan which, with little
modification, they in 1849 proposed to the representatives of all
Germany. They intended a complete exclusion of Austria from the German
Confederation, the establishment of a new Confederation, with a new
fundamental law, and with a Federal Parliament, of the more
insignificant States into the larger ones. All this was to be carried
out the moment Prussia entered into the ranks of Constitutional
Monarchy, established the Liberty of the Press, assumed a policy
independent from that of Russia and Austria, and thus enabled the
Constitutionalists of the lesser States to obtain a real control over
their respective Governments. The inventor of this scheme was
Professor Gervinus, of Heidelberg (Baden). Thus the emancipation of
the Prussian bourgeoisie was to be the signal for that of the middle
classes of Germany generally, and for an alliance, offensive and
defensive of both against Russia and Austria, for Austria was, as we
shall see presently, considered as an entirely barbarian country, of
which very little was known, and that little not to the credit of its
population; Austria, therefore, was not considered as an essential
part of Germany.

As to the other classes of society, in the smaller States they
followed, more or less rapidly, in the wake of their equals in
Prussia. The shopkeeping class got more and more dissatisfied with
their respective Governments, with the increase of taxation, with the
curtailments of those political sham-privileges of which they used to
boast when comparing themselves to the "slaves of despotism" in
Austria and Prussia; but as yet they had nothing definite in their
opposition which might stamp them as an independent party, distinct
from the Constitutionalism of the higher bourgeoisie. The
dissatisfaction among the peasantry was equally growing, but it is
well known that this section of the people, in quiet and peaceful
times, will never assert its interests and assume its position as an
independent class, except in countries where universal suffrage is
established. The working classes in the trades and manufactures of
the towns commenced to be infected with the "poison" of Socialism and
Communism, but there being few towns of any importance out of Prussia,
and still fewer manufacturing districts, the movement of this class,
owing to the want of centres of a