gainst that which to them
seemed freedom. Some among you have later willed otherwise, and, again
because you so willed, they have followed you into that which to them
must seem a war of annihilation against one of the last remnants of
German independence. Since that time they have endured and have borne
the oppressive burden of common woes; yet they do not cease to be
faithful to you, to cling to you with inward devotion, and to love
you as their divinely appointed guardians. Yet may you notice them,
unobserved by them; set free from surroundings which do not invariably
present to you the fairest aspect of humanity, may you be able to
descend into the house of the citizen, into the peasant's cottage,
and may you be able attentively to follow the still and hidden life of
these classes, in which the fidelity and the probity which have become
more rare in the higher classes seem to have sought refuge! Surely,
oh, surely, you will resolve to reflect more seriously than ever how
they may be helped! These addresses have proposed to you a means of
assistance which they believe to be sure, thorough, and decisive. Let
your councillors deliberate whether they also find it so or whether
they know a better means, provided only that it be equally decisive.
But the conviction that something must be done and must be done
immediately, that this something must be radical and final, and
that the time for half-measures and procrastination is past--this
conviction these addresses would fain produce, if they could, in
you personally, as they still cherish the utmost confidence in your
integrity.

These addresses adjure you, Germans as a whole, whatever position
you may take in society, that each one among you who can think, think
first of all upon the theme that has been suggested, and that each one
do for it exactly what in his own place lies nearest to him.

Your forefathers unite with these addresses and adjure you. Imagine
that in my voice are mingled the voices of your ancestors from dim
antiquity, who with their bodies opposed the on-rushing dominion of
the world-power of Rome, who with their blood won the independence of
the mountains, plains, and streams which, under your governance, have
become the booty of the stranger. They call to you: Represent us;
transmit to posterity our memory honorable and blameless as it came
to you, and as you have boasted of it and of descent from us. Thus far
our resistance has been held to be noble