tle of the
Duke of Cambridge to rule as Regent in Hanover was fully recognized. In
all resolutions relating to fundamental laws, the organic regulations of
the Confederation, the _jura singulorum_ and matters of religion, unanimity
was required. All the members of the Confederation bound themselves neither
to enter into war nor into any foreign alliance against the Confederation
or any of its members. The thirteenth article declared, "Each of the
confederated States will grant a constitution to the people." The sixteenth
placed all Christian sects on an equality. The eighteenth granted freedom
of settlement within the Confederation, and promised "uniformity of
regulation concerning the liberty of the press." The fortresses of
Luxemburg, Mainz and Landau were declared common property and occupied in
common by their troops. A fourth fortress was to be raised on the Upper
Rhine with twenty millions of the French contribution money. This was never
done. For future sessions of the Diet the votes were so regulated that the
eleven States of first rank alone held a full vote, the secondary States
merely holding a half or a fourth of a vote, as, for instance, all the
Saxon duchies collectively, one vote; Brunswick and Nassau, one; the two
Mecklenburgs, one; Oldenburg, Anhalt, and Schwartzburg, one; the petty
princes of Hohenzollern, Lichtenstein, Reuss, Lippe, and Waldeck, one; all
the free towns, one; forming altogether seventeen votes. In constitutional
questions the six States of the highest rank were to have each four votes;
the next five States each three; Brunswick, Schwerin, and Nassau, each two;
and all the remaining princes each, one vote. This arrangement, as it
turned out, proved fruitful of endless trouble.

[Sidenote: Unfair representation]

Austria and Prussia at that time contained forty-two million inhabitants;
the rest of Germany merely twelve million. The power of the two predominant
States, therefore, really were in proportion to that of the rest of Germany
as seven to two, whereas their votes in the Diet stood merely as two to
seventeen, and in the plenary assembly as two to fifteen.

[Sidenote: Prussia predominant]

Though Prussia had lost Hanover and East Friesland, she had received
sufficient compensation still--thanks to Hardenberg's diplomacy--to start
her on her future career as the predominant German State. Incorporated with
the Prussian provinces now were half of Saxony, the Grandduchy of Posen, a