Numerous legislative assemblies do not, however, ensure wise laws. Many instances may be found amongst the acts of legislative bodies, which they made for their own interest, and which have been to it immensely pernicious, even according to the narrow view which estimates good and evil by greater or less wealth, power, or influence. All the laws, for example, which have been made by the nobles of Hannover to secure to themselves alone the possession of certain offices, have only damped the general spirit of enterprise in their countrymen; have prevented them from joining in commerce; have promoted the poverty of the whole; and have degraded the nobles themselves, from being high-spirited independent gentlemen, to be the dependent servants of the sovereign.

The states of Hannover continued to meet and to act till the occupation of the country by the French, and I shall here endeavour to describe how they were composed, and explain what was the extent of their powers.

The states of Kalenberg and Göttingen were united into one body, and they consisted of three distinct orders; 1 st, The clergy, consisting of nine members; 2 d, The nobility, one hundred and sixtythree members; 3 d, Deputies of the towns, twenty members. The whole of these numbers rarely met together, but they were all regarded as having a right to assemble. The right belonged to the nobles from their possessing certain properties, and to the clergy and towns from custom. All these three bodies were, each of them, at one time, stronger than the sovereign, and they would give him nothing but just what they pleased. For some years, however, prior to the occupation of the country by the French, two permanent committees, Ausschusse, of the states, managed the whole of their business.

The first was composed of three deputies from the clergy; nine from the nobles, and eight from the towns. Three of the noble members of this committee were called land and treasury councillors; the other six were named deputies from the nobles. The smaller committee consisted of seven members, all of whom were also members of the larger. It was composed of one deputy from the clergy, three from the nobility, and three from the towns. And this smaller committee, excluding the deputy from the town of Hannover, formed what was called the Treasury College. It nowhere appears distinctly what were the particular duties of these committees and this college, further than that the larger committee exercised all the rights, to be afterwards described, attributed to the states, and that the treasury college had the possession and the management of the monies levied as taxes. These committees were both permanent, and had the power of meeting whenever they thought it right to meet.

The three orders deliberated and voted each separately, and the vote of each order was equal. In fact, the deputies from the towns frequently made conditions for themselves apart from the other orders. They decided what portion of any certain tax they would take on themselves. The consent of all these three orders was necessary, rigidly speaking, to levy new taxes, but the consent of two was often regarded as enough. Latterly all the deputies of the clergy and of the towns were members of the states by virtue of the offices they held. Thus the Abbot of Loccum and the first or second bürgermeister of the towns were members, by virtue of their offices. The deputies from the nobles were, however, elected by the whole body of the nobles divided into districts. All held their places for life.

The states of Grubenhagen were also composed of three orders, but they had no committees, and they voted according to numbers, not according to orders. The clergy were two in number, the nobles nine, and the deputies from the towns four. One of the noble properties, and, consequently, one vote, belonged to the crown, and was always in possession of an officer appointed by it. When the owner of one of the noble properties was a minor, he was not allowed to vote. In 1802 these states were united to those of Kalenberg, and then they deputed a certain number of members to the two committees, which have been mentioned, namely, to the larger committee, one member from the clergy, one from the nobility, and two from the towns. The towns alone sent one deputy to the smaller committee and treasury college.

The deputies from three religious corporations, from three towns, and the owners of one hundred and ninety-five noble properties, composed the states of the province of Lüneburg. The noble properties were divided into old and new, the latter having had, since records were kept, the privileges of nobility given to them. The nobles had most power. They were divided into four districts, and all the owners of noble property in each district, whether they themselves were noble or not, had the right of voting for the election of two members for each district. There was in this province a permanent college of what may be called provincial councillors, Landraths Collegium. It consisted of nine members, one of whom was president, and had the title of Lands-schaft Director. When a vacancy took place in this college, the eight remaining persons and the eight deputies from the nobility together, elected a person to fill the vacancy. If there were two vacancies, one of the deputies selected by lot went away, so that the numbers both of the deputies and the members of the college might be equal. When the place of director was vacant, the members of the college elected from amongst themselves three persons, whom they presented to the sovereign, and he appointed which of those three he pleased to the office of director. He became, by virtue of this appointment, possessed of the title and emoluments of Abbot of St Michael’s in Lüneburg. The eight deputies from the nobles and the college of provincial councillors elected also four noble deputies and two treasury councillors. It was a rule that the whole of these persons, the deputies of the nobles, the members of the college, and the treasury councillors, must be noblemen, and possessed of a noble property in the province. The treasury college consisted of two deputies of the nobles and one from the towns. After these preliminary remarks, the reader may comprehend what is meant by saying, that when the states of Lüneburg met to grant taxes, or for other business, they consisted of the college of provincial councillors, of four deputies from the nobility, and the three members of the treasury college. The deputies from two religious corporations, and those from the three towns of Lüneburg, Uelzen, and Celle, sat at a separate table. But the votes were given according to numbers, and the votes of all were equal.

When Bremen and Verden were secularized for Sweden in the seventeenth century, the states of these provinces, which formerly consisted of the prebends and chapters of the towns of Bremen and Hamburg, of members from several other religious corporations, of nobility and of deputies from the towns, were reduced to the two latter only. The town of Bremen was separated from the province, and the other clergy ceased to be of importance. Before the peace of Westphalia, the states had regular meetings in both provinces, in which their votes were given according to numbers, and not according to orders. Since that period, they have been united together, and till the occupation of the country by the French, the business of the states was conducted by what was called a permanent college of provincial councillors. It consisted of a nobleman president, who was also director of the convent of Neuen-Walde, of six deputies from the nobility of Bremen, of one from the nobility of Verden, and of five learned deputies, or jurisconsults, who were sent by the towns of Stade, Buxtehude, and Verden. The number of properties in the two provinces, which were noble or gave a right to vote, was seventy-five. In former times, the owners of free property not noble, situated in the marsh lands on the Elbe, claimed and exercised the right of sending deputies to these states; but this right was latterly refused to them, though they were allowed to have a sort of representative who might appeal for them to the government against any taxes levied by the states.

The states of the provinces of Hoya and Diepholz had long been formed, like those of Kalenberg, into two committees, the greater was composed of three noble provincial councillors, and five deputies from the nobles, of two deputies from the owners of free property not noble, and of four deputies from the towns. There were, therefore, eight noble persons, and six persons not noble. The smaller committee was composed of the three noble provincial councillors, two deputies from the nobles, one from the free people, and four from the towns. The treasury college was composed of the three noble provincial councillors, and two deputies from the towns, or, as they were called, learned treasury deputies.

Five only of the provincial states or parliaments have here been described; the sixth province was Lauenburg, but a very small part of which now belongs to Hannover. Its states resembled in their leading points those of the other provinces.

The new provinces which Hannover has acquired seem, like the old possessions, to have had something also like parliaments. The sovereign of Hildesheim was a Catholic prince-bishop, and the states were composed of deputies from seven clerical corporations, of the nobility, and of deputies from four cities. From the differences and disputes which took place between the states of this province and Prussia, when this latter power, in its grasping ambition, seized Hildesheim, there is reason to believe they had always maintained much consideration; and that the power of the prince-bishop had not exceeded their own. A German proverb says, “Es lasse sich unter dem Krumm-stab gut wohnen.” “It is good living under the crozier;” and the general populousness of this province, a perfectly free corn trade, which the inhabitants always enjoyed till the occupation of the country by the Prussians, and the power of the states, prove that the government of the bishop of Hildesheim had been mild like that of his brother prince-bishops. At Magdeburg I left it to others to decide whether the dominion of the crozier or that of the sword was the greatest evil, but I may now affirm, from this proverb, and from a glance of countries which have long been governed by the sword, that it is by far the greatest evil.

Friezland had a parliament, or states, in which the third order, the possessors of property not noble, had a very great influence. This order had one hundred and eighty deputies, and the towns fifteen. They gave only such taxes as they pleased, and they kept the management of those which they did give in their own hands.

Such were the former states; they appear in general to have had the following power and privileges.

As individuals, the clergy and nobility possessed the power of nominating, and the sovereign of confirming, the persons who were to administer justice in those districts in which the courts belonged, either to a clerical corporation, or a nobleman. The power of these courts, and consequently of the individual clergy and nobles, extended not only to the administration of justice, but to all things connected with police, with the military, or with the government, or with the church. It was their business to make known and carry into execution all the laws and all the orders from the sovereign. They were free from most taxes. The nobles alone had the right to sport, and to them alone were secured many of the most important and wealthy offices in the country.

When assembled as a parliament, or in their legislative capacity, they had no control over the taxes levied for the empire, Reichs-steuer, for the circle, Kreis-steuer, and for the dowry of the monarch’s daughters, Prinzessin-steuer. But over all other taxes they held complete control. None could be levied without their approbation. They presented, but it belonged to the sovereign to confirm the presentation, to all places connected either with the collection or the expenditure of the taxes, and they took them into their custody when they were collected. Few alterations could be made in the administration of justice without the approbation of the states; but on this subject there is nothing precise; there being regulations extant issued by the government alone without the consent of the states, that had all the effects of laws, without the name.

Before the existence of standing armies, the states were consulted as to levying and disciplining the troops. Since then, however, they have had nothing to do with any thing relative to war. At a former period, no alteration was made in any thing relative to the church without the consent of the states, and they possessed the presentation to many appointments connected with the administration of justice. They appointed, for example, to some of the judges’ places in the Court of Appeals at Celle, and to many others.

They appear to have had stated times of coming together, but might be also assembled at other times by the necessities, or by the will of the sovereign. When the whole states met, they generally separated when they had finished the business for which they had assembled, or they were dismissed at the pleasure of the Crown. It was only at the conclusion or dissolution of the assembly that what it had done became known, which was then published under the name of Landtags-abschied, dismissal, or leave-taking of the states; so named, because it was customary for them to present their report when they took their leave of their sovereign. In later times, it appears that at least one of the committees and the treasury college remained always assembled.

The powers of all the states of the different provinces were in some measure different from one another, and all were different from themselves at different times. The following passage shews their power in the year 1392. “Out of the nobles living between the Deister and the Leine, and from those dwelling on the Aller, five were elected; three came from Lüneburg and the country about the Jetze, the town-council of Lüneburg sent four councillors, and four were sent from the towns of Hannover and Uelzen. The times and place where this committee of the states should assemble were prescribed, and the meeting was to divide itself, a part in Hannover, a part in Lüneburg, in order that complaints out of every district might be more easily brought before the two divided parts. This committee was the inexorable guarantee of all the conditions of the treaty between the prince and his subjects, the judge between him and any complaining party, and when the fulfilment of their sentence was postponed they executed it themselves.”

“If any one of the prelates, nobles, or citizens, believed himself injured by the prince, and the prince’s officer, or even the prince himself, did not do him justice, the injured party, when he did not choose to wait for the half yearly meeting of this committee, applied to the nearest nobleman or city which belonged to the committee, and this person or city was by law obliged, after an examination with the next nearest member of the committee, to make known the complaint before fourteen days to the prince, who must give satisfaction within fourteen days, or he ought to go without farther notice to Hannover, and there remain till the hardship was removed.

“If, in this period, neither the complainant was satisfied, nor the promised residence of the prince in Hannover took place, the town-council of Lüneburg and this committee were authorized to sequester all the revenues of the prince till the complaint was removed, or the money repaid which the states had granted the prince. Should the prince however refuse, or prevent this satisfaction from being made, the committee were authorized to call to arms all the persons who had contributed to this money, to guard against injustice, and to protect all whom the prince oppressed. Eight nobles, therefore, and eight deputies of the towns, were endowed with the character of judges between the prince and the people.”

It must be remarked, that these observations apply only to a portion of the present dominions of Hannover, but they also give a picture of the general character and power of the states in the fourteenth century. They shew clearly enough that the practice of governing which has lately been followed in Germany by the mere will of the prince, then had no existence whatever. He was merely endowed with a little more authority than any other individual nobleman, but not with so much as the whole people.

The above quotation shews, that the states had a power equal or superior to the power of the English parliament at the same period. At that same period, and even down to the seventeenth century, all the towns of any importance, such as Hannover, Lüneburg, Göttingen, and Brunswick, were in a great measure independent of the sovereign. They owed him obedience as their superior liege-lord, but they were often more powerful than he, and openly set him at defiance. They exercised absolute sovereignty; they did all sorts of acts which would now be called rebellion, and which would now be classed and punished as the most heinous crimes. Such is the changeable character of that morality of our race, which is attempted to be made unchangeable by positive laws. The towns coined their own money; they levied and disbursed their own taxes; they made treaties with one another, and with strange princes; they made laws for themselves; and when they levied forces, and resisted the oppressions of their sovereign, or chastised the nobles for pillaging, the war which they made was not regarded as either unjust or unnecessary.

The following account of these states is given by Dr Karl Venturini, at a later period, 1776:— “Who shall now struggle against the power of the crown? The prelates, who were indebted to court favour for their prebends, were naturally dependent on the government; and though they were learned in dogmas, and the history of the church, that gave them no well-grounded and perfect information respecting the constitution of the country. The deputies of the towns, instead of being the unsuspected organs of the will of their constituents, were machines in the hands of government, which did not want means to punish them severely—very severely, if they wished to steer the state-ship in any other manner than its commander thought good. How could it then be otherwise, than that in these two classes the spirit of indolence and submission would be predominant? From whom else could the land hope for relief, but from the class of the nobles?

But what relief?—nearly all the deputies of the nobles were in the service of the crown. They were all related to one another by blood or by marriage. They only struggled to preserve their own freedom from taxation. And if this were preserved, they were perfectly submissive to the government, from whose favour there were no more benefits to expect.”

How little the ancient rights of the states were latterly regarded, is shewn by the ministry of Hannover incorporating, in 1794, the regiments levied for the defence of the land with the regular army. The states, particularly those of Kalenberg and Lüneburg, opposed this, but they were told, that “the sovereign’s power, relative to war and arms, admitted of no limitation; and they were silent.” On another occasion, when the inhabitants of Hannover were discontented because some debts which were due from the English commissariat were not paid, the states displayed an intention of bringing these claims before the English parliament; but they were told, “the sovereign would regard such a step very unfavourably,” and here the matter rested.

The only act of injustice of which I have read or heard of, as committed by the government of Hannover, grew out of the measure of incorporating the militia with the regular army. The Herr von Berlepsch had made himself conspicuous by his opposition on this, and on several other occasions, and had particularly excited the resentment of the ministry, by making a proposition to the states, that they should endeavour to establish a neutrality for Hannover, and should declare that they were not disposed to convert a war made by the chief of the nation into a national war. This was treated as a design to separate the country from the elector. The states were blamed by the ministry for listening to such a proposal; and Mr von Berlepsch was not only dismissed from his situation as a judge, Hofrichter, but was also put out of the assembly of the states. He appealed against the conduct of the government to the imperial chamber at Vienna. A judgment, which, in the vigour of imperial power, would have been immediately fulfilled, but which the power of the King of Great Britain enabled the elector of Hannover to set at nought, was pronounced in his favour. He was to be restored to his situation; but the imperial herald who was bringing the rescript was chased with indignity from the gates of Hannover. Such was the alteration in the states between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries, that the ministry latterly regarded them as the servants of the crown. They were no longer the judges betwixt it and the people, but an instrument for governing the latter.

In Riesebeck’s Travels through Germany, page 8, an instance of the opposition of the states of Wirtemberg to the will of the sovereign is mentioned. In the same work it is stated, that the elector of Saxony had a privy purse, but that the taxes were levied and controlled by the states. Their present power has been mentioned. In the little county of Wernigerode also, states are said always to have been in use, in which the chiefs of the villages had a right to a seat and a vote. There was a period when states or parliaments were universal and powerful in Germany. Nor do they, except in Prussia and Oldenburg, appear any where to have grown into absolute disuse, although their powers were every where much weakened and diminished.

Considered as a system of representation, the states of the different countries of Germany were undoubtedly as perfect as the parliament of Great Britain. All the landed property of the country, and all the commercial wealth, were completely represented by the nobles and the deputies of the towns. Property is adequately represented in both countries. So far as the form of the system went, it might have been a priori expected, that the states of Germany should have maintained their power, as the parliament of Great Britain has maintained and increased its power. But the former sank into insignificance, while the latter has become sole legislative and all-governing. In Germany, the power of the sovereigns, and, in Britain, that of the parliament, became pre-eminently great. It may be worth the trouble to throw a hasty glance over some of the causes which reduced the states of Germany to insignificance, and made the difference between them and the parliament of Great Britain now so remarkable.

Owing to various causes, our parliament has been subjected to many changes. Its constitution has been frequently, and, in some instances, entirely changed. This has adapted it to changes in the manners and modes of thinking in the people; and, without rendering it in its form a more accurate representation of all classes, has made it a better instrument to effect the welfare of the whole. But the German states, till a very recent period, continued unaltered. They were adapted to the fourteenth century, and were necessarily inefficient in the eighteenth. Spittler says, “That among all the powers of Germany, there is hardly one whose constitution, during an unbroken succession of 500 years, has been so little disturbed by the powerful hand of a reformer, as that of the German dominions of his Majesty King George the Third of Great Britain, nor is there any one which has so many intricacies that nobody has ever attempted to simplify.” The same fact appears true of most of the political institutions of Germany. Since the Reformation the sovereigns may have changed their ministers, or altered the uniforms of their guards, or introduced some new arrangements into their cabinets; and they have gone on constantly augmenting their power; but the people, since that period, as if satisfied with the efforts they then made, have never, till within a few years, paid any attention to their governments, and they have continued unchanged in form. It has been in some measure, therefore, from wanting the interference of the people—from not being occasionally reformed, that the states of Germany have dwindled into insignificance. The spirit which animated them fled, while the forms remained, disguising slavery with the attributes of freedom.

It is since the Reformation that the power of the sovereigns of Germany has most increased. The thirty years’ war which followed that event reduced many flourishing towns to poverty, augmented the power of a few successful princes and, gave them the command of standing and mercenary armies. The people, who had been plundered, and almost reduced to despair by the miseries of so prolonged a contest, surrendered themselves to the guidance of the princes. The destruction of many cities had deprived liberty of her principal support.

The Reformation in Germany also completely destroyed the clergy as an independent part of the states. The whole of their revenues in the Protestant countries were taken from them, and they were only allowed a sufficiency for subsistence. The greater part of their wealth and their power fell into the hands of the sovereigns, who thus added to their own power all that which belonged to one of the three members, and perhaps the most powerful one of the states. In countries to which the Reformation did not extend, the clergy necessarily became alarmed by the fate of their brethren; and they united themselves more closely to the crown. In England there was such a reformation in religion as satisfied the people, and the church retained its wealth. It was not reduced to actual dependance on the crown.

In this point there is a resemblance between Scotland and Germany. In both these countries the wealth of the clergy was appropriated to individuals, or to the sovereign, and their separate independent existence as a political body destroyed; and in both, the power of the sovereign was proportionally augmented more than in England.

A law in Germany called the Meyer ordinance, or law, and also custom, very generally regulate and limit the power of the landholder over the peasant. While this latter has an hereditary right to a small spot of land, the former has a right only to a certain portion of services or rent, which cannot be augmented. This law, by compelling the land to remain divided into small parcels, has impeded the advancement of agriculture, and has constantly limited the wealth of the nobles to the incomes they possessed three or four centuries ago. They could not lump several farms together, nor could they exact a greater rent for their land than was already paid them. Their own prejudices prevented them engaging in commerce, and they had no other way to acquire wealth, or to preserve superiority to their families, but to hire themselves as soldiers, or as servants, to the sovereigns. The impossibility of the nobles increasing their revenue, and their desire to participate in all those luxuries of modern times,—to enjoy which is a mark of superiority,—was the great means of reducing them to a dependance on the sovereign for places and pensions. The nobility of England have not only remained rich from their property having increased in value as they lived more luxuriously, but the mass of their wealth has been considerably augmented by their intermarrying in families grown opulent by commerce, and by many of these latter having been added to the nobility. These circumstances, which are unknown in Germany, have saved the nobility of Britain from becoming, like the nobility of Germany, dependant on the sovereign.

The third order of the German states, the deputies of the towns, were in general the magistrates of the towns, who were originally tradesmen, and interested in the welfare of their fellow citizens, and in the honour of their city. As these magistrates had to administer the laws, when a foreign law was introduced into Germany, it became necessary one or more of them should study this law, or be a jurisconsult. In a little time they all became jurisconsults, and the whole influence of the magistracy fell into the hands of a sect or profession. The magistrates had then no means of acquiring wealth but by their profession as lawyers, and they became dependant on the sovereign, from being willing to unite any emoluments he could give them with those which they derived from their situation as magistrates.

Learned men necessarily regarded common tradesmen as very unqualified to judge of their fitness to fill the office of magistrates. They were countenanced in this opinion by that ignorance which admires what it cannot comprehend, and the magistrates were suffered to elect the magistrates. To ensure their power, they joined with the sovereigns against the citizens, and they effectually succeeded in taking from the latter all control over their own concerns. They necessarily lost by this, however, all the consequence and power which is derived from representing the opinions of a large body of men, and of being supported by them. They transferred the people to the sovereign, and they themselves dwindled into mere individual lawyers, whom the sovereign could command or buy when he pleased.

There is here another point of coincidence between Scotland and Germany. In both countries a foreign law was introduced different from the laws and customs of the people, which, in both, rendered the people entirely dependant on the interpreters of that law. By this means the mass of the people in Germany were gradually excluded from all participation in the administration of the law, and of government, and gradually reduced to such a state of comparative ignorance of political matters, as to render it dangerous, at a later period, to allow them to have any influence whatever in them. Thus it has ever been. Some vile state system degrades men, and then this very degradation is made the plea for continuing the system.

Government in Germany appears always to have been considered as a mere attribute of property. All its duties and its rights belonged to clerical corporations, to towns, and to individual nobles, as the owners of certain estates. The practice of dividing their properties, which so long kept the sovereigns of Germany weak and dependant on the nobles and towns, was generally abolished in the seventeenth century. When the right of primogeniture was introduced, the sovereigns not only transmitted their own properties undivided, but, by the extinction of other branches of their family, the number of the sovereigns diminished, and the power of each one became augmented by his uniting in his own hands several sovereignties. Thus the sovereigns of Prussia, of Hannover, of Austria, gradually acquired the power of several provinces and principalities, without the people or the states of those provinces becoming so united as to form any counterpoise to the increased power of the sovereigns. The revenues of the sovereigns of Germany were principally derived from landed property, and, as they acquired more territory, they necessarily added to their revenues. This gave them still greater power. The states of Kalenberg or of Brandenburg were fully competent to contend with the Prince of Kalenberg or the Margrave of Brandenburg, but their power was not equal to that of the Elector of Hannover or the King of Prussia. This was evidently a great cause of the loss of power by the states. They retained more power under the sovereigns of Wirtemberg and Saxony, who increased their dominions very little, than they did under the emperors of Austria, under the kings of Prussia, or under the electors of Hannover.

The sovereigns of Germany were enabled to maintain standing armies out of their own revenues, and the privilege of the states to grant taxes, to keep them when collected, and to control their expenditure, became useless. The very contrary of this happened in Britain. The property of the sovereign became the property of the nation, and he became dependant on the parliament, not only for the means of carrying on war, but for the means of supporting his domestic establishment. The sovereigns of Germany possess a large part of the land as their own property, but the sovereign of Great Britain has little other wealth than an income fixed by the parliament.

In Germany, the clergy, as an independent part of the states, were destroyed, the nobles reduced to dependance by their poverty, and the magistrates of the towns were rendered insignificant by their ambition of governing independent of the people. In the same proportion as the sovereigns increased in wealth and power, the states lost great part of their influence as political bodies, and they are only now likely to regain it by becoming the representatives of the people and of public opinion.

There are some points of difference between the constitutions of these states of Germany and the parliament of Britain, and in the circumstances of the two countries, that deserve further notice. All the members of the states of Germany were in general members for life. In Britain the power of the crown is increased by parliaments lasting seven years instead of three, and the sovereigns of Germany must have had a proportionately greater influence over deputies who were never subjected to account to their constituents. Holding their situations for life, and at the same time managing the taxes, the interest of the deputies came to be the same as the interest of the crown, and they were easily persuaded to join in all its measures. A struggle between the landed and the commercial interest of Great Britain, in which each one is ready to buy the favour of the sovereign by sacrificing the other, has very often increased his power at the expence of both. The same fact is true of the German states; but, separated as the deputies of the towns were from the nobles, opposed to them as they have ever been since towns were first built, they were seldom or never disposed to act in strict concert. Each party very often made conditions for itself, and most generally the towns took on themselves a stipulated and unequal portion of the common burdens. The two bodies had no common interest. They were jealous of each other, and both sought the protection of the sovereign.

The wealth which has been diffused in our country by commerce, and the change in property which that has occasioned, is at present a very marked difference between Britain and the north of Germany, but that can hardly be considered as a primary cause of the difference in our political institutions. The facility of acquiring landed property in Britain, which enables the merchant to give stability to his wealth, and to acquire political power, has had great influence; but the mere extent of our commerce is rather a consequence than a cause of our political regulations. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, when every town of the north of Germany was a trading town of some importance, when Brunswick, and Hannover, and Goslar, were members of the Hanseatic league, the north of Germany had probably as much commerce as England at the same period. The commerce of Britain has gradually increased since then, while that of Germany has stood still, if it has not actually diminished. The country possesses sea-coast, noble rivers, and all possible advantages of communication, but the same freedom has not been left to its trade as to that of Britain. The diminution of its commerce has been caused by impolitic regulations, but, as it once equalled our own, could it have given that freedom of which we boast, Germany would have possessed freedom as well as England. The extent of our commerce, by accumulating capital in the hands of a few persons, may be supposed rather to have impeded than promoted political liberty.

From the very imperfect manner in which the British parliament is composed, and from the total want of general principles in its formation, it has no real claim to the character of an accurate representation of the people, and there can be no doubt that all the good which we ascribe to it has been produced far less by virtue of its own composition, than by the influence of the public press. This has given it the support of public opinion, has embodied it with the nation, and prevented it from becoming what its constitution would otherwise have made it,—the mere organ of the ministry or of the monarch. Without the press its members would have possessed merely the influence which their own property, and the influence which the power of the persons who appoint them could give, and they would then have been a few individuals taking care of their own paltry interests. It is the press alone which has given them the support of the public, has elevated them to the dignity of legislators for the nation, and has invested them with all the power which flows from possessing the confidence of a great and a mighty people. If there were no busy, well-informed, meddling public, if there were no free press, our House of Commons would only be a larger sort of council to the crown, a more extensive ministry, exercising its office by usurping the name of the people.

The Germans have always been, till within a few years, destitute of any vehicle for public opinion, and of every means of giving it weight by concentration. Both as Germans, and as Austrians, Prussians, Hannoverians, &c. &c., they have never been united. They have had nothing in common but the name. Their country has constantly been subjected to a change in its governors or proprietors, and there has, therefore, been no common bond for the people. Their attention has been exclusively occupied with the trifles of learning, with the parade of war, or with the more necessary business of procuring subsistence. Many of them have had no time, and the rest have had no inclination, to attend to political affairs. There has been a want of large bodies of men, who regarded themselves as having a common interest, and there was no means of uniting the Germans into such bodies till they acquired a common literature. They have never regarded their states as the palladium of political freedom, they have, in truth, only thought of it within a few years. The states have, therefore, never had the power and the noble character of representing a whole nation. And one great cause why institutions so similar in their origin as the states of Germany and the Parliament of Great Britain, have had different results, has been, that the former have wanted that political public, and that free press which have saved the latter from becoming an insignificant council of the crown. It is by our own interference, by our own virtues, that we have gained all our advantages, and if liberty be, next to health, the greatest earthly good, we may appreciate how much the Germans have lost by neglecting to direct their own concerns, and by that implicit confidence which they have placed in their rulers.

CHAPTER XIV.: hannover—the present states.

When united.—Speech of the Duke of Cambridge.—Intention of forming a general assembly of the states.—How composed.—Dependent on the government.—Imperfect as a system of representation.—Proceedings secret.—Salaries of members.—States protect a right of the people.—Benefits and disadvantages of the new system.—Probable effects.—Remarks on the wish of the Germans for new constitutions.

It had long been thought desirous to unite the many different provincial states which existed in Hannover into one general assembly for the whole country. The chief circumstance which prevented this union was, that each one of the provinces had different debts and taxes, which it was difficult or impossible to equalize according to any general principles, which should be just to all. When the country was taken possession of by the French, they reduced all the provinces to the same level of misery, and set aside all the provincial states, and thus facilitated, at a future period, the completion of the long desired union. Soon after Hannover was restored to the rule of its ancient sovereigns, the different provincial states, with some modifications, were ordered, by a proclamation dated August the 12th, 1813, to assemble in the town of Hannover, there to form one general assembly of the states for the whole kingdom. This assembly was not composed of precisely the same number of deputies as composed the several provincial states, but the sovereign ordered what number of deputies should be sent from each province, and by whom they should be elected.

The assembly was opened in form by the Duke of Cambridge on the 16th of December of the same year. In his speech, among other things, his Royal Highness said, “The Prince Regent was preceding the other sovereigns of Germany in calling an assembly together, in which the voice of the people might lift itself with freedom, but with order, for the purpose of informing him how he might best see his wish of promoting the welfare of the land fulfilled.” The president of the assembly, on the following day, replied to this speech, and praised in it “the noble spirit of the Prince Regent, because he wished to give his Hannoverian subjects that activity of mind which was the pride of the British nation, and which was the source of all those lesser advantages which support and adorn life.” The Duke of Cambridge replied, that “the Prince Regent had given up some rights which other princes regarded as a necessary part of the royal dignity, inasmuch as he had called them to be to him, what the parliament is in the sister kingdom of Great Britain; a great council of the nation.”

This is the language of temperate and rational freedom, and it explains tolerably well what was the intention of the sovereign in forming this assembly, and what he expected it to perform. Parliaments in some measure similar to this one, and with similar intentions, have been promised or given to most of the countries of Germany. They are modelled in name after the House of Commons of Great Britain, and are to form great councils for each nation. How far they are likely to succeed, and what are likely to be their effects, may, in some measure, be known by attending to the real formation of this of Hannover. A list, therefore, is given in the Appendix, No. II. of this assembly. It consists of 101 persons, 48 of whom represent the nobility, 10 the clergy, 37 the towns, and 6 the holders of free property, which has not the privileges of nobility attached to it. Four of the six represent the free proprietors of Friezland, one those of Hoya, and one is sent by the inhabitants of the marsh lands on the Elbe.

It must be remembered, that what are classed as representatives of the clergy are not elected by any members of that body, but by the chapters of the several secularized convents which have been mentioned, all the members of which, with the single exception of those of the abbey of Loccum, hold these appointments at the will of the crown, and are very generally some of its civil servants. The representatives of the towns are elected by the magistrates, who are all either appointed by the crown, or dependant on it. In the absence of the sovereign the nobles, who possess the exclusive privilege of filling all the higher offices of the ministry and government, must be considered as the real sovereign and executive power. There remains, therefore, of the whole assembly only the six representatives of free property, who may not be considered as appointed by the executive government. A great majority of this “great council of the nation” is composed of members appointed by the executive government, to sanction, in the name of the people, all its acts. The name it bears in the country corresponds to this character; it is called the jahen Gesellschaft, —the assenting society.

There are only twenty-nine members of this assembly who do not actually hold some office, from which they may be removed at the pleasure of the crown; and, of this twenty-nine, there are only three merchants, and two agricultural gentlemen, who do not fill some situations in the service of the crown, such as officers of the army, from which it is not customary arbitrarily to remove them, or who have not filled some office, the title of which they still retain, and of which they may be deprived. Those who know how dear every title is to the vanity of a German, may appreciate the influence which these give the crown over the members of this assembly not actually in its service.

As a system of representation, even of the three classes, which it is said to represent, it is very defective. The whole body of the real clergy have no representative, and the deputies of the towns are elected by the magistrates, not by the citizens; as a system of representation for all the people it is still more defective. The whole class of the cultivators of land or peasants are neglected. They have no representative. In fact, the nobles are the only class adequately represented.

It cannot be expected that an assembly so composed should bestow on the country any of those advantages which we have derived from a popular government. It cannot give, according to the intentions of the sovereign, that activity of mind which our people derive from partly governing themselves, or rather from not being so much governed as other nations; it can never produce those benefits which we ascribe to our parliament; and bearing the name of a system of representation, it may chance to bring all such systems into discredit. The nations of Europe feel the weight of their respective governments more in taxation than in any other manner. All the members of this assembly are paid; it otherwise costs a considerable sum; it must add to the burdens of the people; and when they find, as they probably will, that no benefits are derived from it, they may be as unanimous in wishing its abolition as they were in asking it, and may gladly seek refuge in the less expensive government of a sovereign and his ministry.

One of the first acts nearly of this body was to decide whether their proceedings should be open and public, or not. I have been told by a member that the question was never decidedly put to the vote, but I have read that it was, and it was decided by a majority of two, that the proceedings should not be public. What they deliberate about, and the result of their deliberations, is never accurately known, further than that those things which they agree on are announced to the public in the form of laws.

A complete set of regulations for the conduct of the assembly was drawn up. A translation will be placed in the Appendix.

The deputies are to receive:—Those who live out of the town of Hannover, four thalers, 13s. 4d. per day each; and those who live in the town two thalers, 6s. 8d. per day each. To the officers of the assembly, such as the secretary and syndicii, some still greater pay is to be given, but the amount is not yet settled.

One instance has been mentioned of a deputy who was several years ago turned out by the government. Members may resign if they please; instances are known of their doing so; but with this exception they are elected for life.

The present powers of the states are not defined by any law, and they are not so established by custom that they can be described. They are to possess all the power which the different provincial states could rightly claim. This includes the right to grant or to refuse taxes, and to take them into their custody. This would be a mighty power, had the monarch no other revenues. His domains, however, render him independent of them. Every thing the government has yet asked for in the form of taxes has been given it. The management of them is entirely entrusted to what may be translated, the superior tax committee, ober Steuer Commission. This committee consists of five persons appointed by the crown, and of seven deputies elected by the states—one out of each province. The president is the minister of finance, and this committee regulates whatever relates to the levying, managing, and expending the taxes.

One particular point is known, and there may be more, in which the great prerogative of a representative assembly, that of granting taxes, is not regarded. The executive levies taxes without the consent of the states, by quartering soldiers to any extent it pleases on the people, without they receiving any remuneration. A particular instance of this is known to have occurred at Meppen, and of which the inhabitants complained.

It is equally bad that the governments of the provinces possess the power, at least they practise it, of ordering money to be collected for the support of the troops. By an order issued by the provincial government of Bentheim on the 10th day of March 1818, the inhabitants were made to pay two certain taxes for the support of the landwehr, land dragoons, and the 2d regiment of hussars quartered in Osnabrück. The order seems to have been given entirely in the name of the government. Höheren Orts are the indefinite words; and the people are warned, by the probability of punishment, to be punctual in their payments. When this sort of power remains in the hands of the sovereign, and is used by his servants, it is but a mockery to say, no taxes shall be levied without the consent of the states.

It has been said that no laws shall be made without their consent; and then it is affirmed that only is a law which is made with their consent. But many regulations have been made in which the states have had no concern whatever, although they are truly laws of a most important character. One has been mentioned as entirely altering the constitution of the city of Embden. Yet, contrary to the custom, when any law has been made in conjunction with the states, it was decreed in the name of the sovereign alone.

There appears to be no sort of regulations which the states may not assist in making. They have been called to deliberate on the improvement of the system of justice; and, imitating the practices of a British House of Commons, they gave solemn thanks to their mercenary army. On another occasion they interfered to protect an important part of the freedom of the subject. This deserves to be recorded not only to their honour, but as an example to another nation, which boasts much of its justice and freedom. In an act relative to the Landwehr, the ministers had inserted words which implied, it was only right for the subjects to quit the country when they had the permission of the government. These the states objected to, as “limiting the natural freedom of the inhabitants, and that right which is born with man, to seek his residence, according to his convenience, in a foreign country.” The ministers allowed the alteration, and the inhabitants of Hannover, more privileged in this point than some of the inhabitants of Great Britain, are allowed to carry their industry to the best market.

Representative assemblies are at present asked for in many parts of Germany. Subjects demand new constitutions of their sovereigns; and it may therefore be worth while to inquire what benefits have been conferred on Hannover by this new form of government, and what the rest of the Germans may expect from their demands being complied with.

Many persons appear to imagine, that hitherto Germany has been arbitrarily governed;—that the sovereigns have been every thing, and the people nothing; they therefore conclude, that any assembly bearing the name of a representative assembly, and approaching the character of one, must be a benefit to the country, and a step towards freedom. But the unlimited government of the sovereigns is of very modern origin; and it may be doubted if the representative assemblies which they may establish, will not be so framed as to support their own power, rather than to add to the freedom of the people. A very favourable opinion is also entertained of the principle of representation; and it seems to be imagined, that any assembly bearing the name of representatives of the people, is a sure guarantee to liberty. This is judging hastily; and it must not be inferred that the inhabitants of Hannover have had freedom given them by the sovereign, because he has established what he was pleased to call an assembly similar to the parliament of Great Britain.

The inhabitants of the different provinces of Hannover have long had different privileges; and a system of representation which might be a benefit to one part, might be a curse to another. A similar fact is true of most of the countries of Germany. A system of representation which would be an advantage to the ancient provinces of Prussia, might be a step towards slavery, if applied to the provinces on the Rhine. A very ill formed government might be a blessing to Hungary, which would be a curse to the dukedom of Austria. In the same way, the general assembly of the states in Hannover, which may be advantageous to some of the ancient provinces, may be most pernicious to Friezland. It is a very pretty sounding doctrine of politicians, that all the subjects of the same government should have equal rights and privileges. It would be still better extended to all men; they should all have equal rights and privileges. In the mouths of statesmen, however, this maxim does not mean an equality of freedom, nor that all should be raised to the same enjoyments, but that all should bear the same burdens, and be visited with the same oppressions. With them it is a sort of Jack Cade equality;—all men are to be equal, but they are to be the lords and masters. In pursuing this equalizing system, the free inhabitants of Hadeln and Friezland are now to be inflicted with as great a portion of the evils of government, with as great a weight of taxation, as the provinces of Kalenberg or Hoya. Those who have struggled for ages against their enemies, are now to be loaded with slavery by their professed friends. Such seems to be one characteristic of that general system now adopted for Hannover; and systems similar to it are probably about to be adopted throughout Germany.

Comparing the present situation of Friezland and Hadeln with their situation before the French occupation, they have both evidently lost much by being made parts of the general system. Where Friezland had its own parliament, in which the proprietors of land were adequately represented, it now sends nine members to the general assembly, four only of whom can be considered as independent. It has been already proved, that they are not able to shield their country against the power of the government. When the parliament assembled in Friezland, it was under the influence of the opinion of all the people; but how shall the opinions of the Friezlanders cross the sands, so as to make any impression on the assembly at Hannover? or what weight will be allowed to so small a part of the whole? It is generally a blessing to limit the number of separate governments. Scotland, Ireland, and England, have only become one nation, since they had but one government. As governments are reduced in number, so national distinctions and national animosities are diminished; but it must always be desirable, that the less free should be united to the more free, and not that the freeman should be bound with the slave. It is from changing its own free government for the government of Hannover, that Friezland has suffered.

The little Land Hadeln also has changed the ten deputies which it formerly had, who met together in that Land itself, and who were controlled by the opinion of their neighbours and friends, for a single representative in the general assembly; and he is a doctor of laws, chief of the police, and bürgermeister of Otterndorf.

Could the assembly be considered as independent of the sovereign, it would undoubtedly be a more efficacious instrument for supporting the rights of the people than so many scattered provincial states. Being dependant, however, it will probably be more easily led by him now when it is united, than the separate assemblies could be. In fact, the difficulty of procuring similar resolutions to be adopted by all the provincial states, was one reason assigned for uniting them together. One assembly is a focus for public opinion, but public opinion has yet to be formed, and it can only be worked into a consistency by a free press, which the country does not enjoy. This assembly at present can have no support from public opinion; there is no such thing in all the half-inhabited provinces of the kingdom, and there is no means of forming it. The press from the other parts of Germany may have an influence on the assembly, but its nominal constituents, and the nation at large, can neither support it nor bring it into disrepute. It is at present independent of them, and can only work good or evil of itself.

The prosperity of our country is frequently attributed to the mere circumstance of our having a House of Commons, which may lead persons to imagine, that, now Hannover has a similar assembly, she can have nothing more to desire. Her people having received that from the bounties of the crown, will be seduced into indolence, and tempted to believe that they have done whatever is necessary to secure their freedom. They will be likely to slacken their efforts, and resign themselves more patiently to the direction of the government. It is, however, apparent, that most of our prosperity is more owing to our free press than to our parliament, and, composed as that of Hannover is, it never can be a cause of prosperity to that country. Contemporary, however, with its establishment, a sort of free press, and a thirst for political discussion, have in some measure grown into use in Germany. Political knowledge is rapidly spreading. The Germans must improve, and it is probable that the improvements derived from an increase of knowledge will be ascribed to an expensive parliament. Men will be still taught to look to parliaments for those remedies for their sufferings which they must in fact supply themselves. This assembly must be regarded as adding to the expences of the country, and as complicating still more the machinery of government. It will reduce the peasant to a still greater degree of poverty, and rather prevent than promote the spread of political knowledge. It never can be what the sovereign said it was intended to be. It never can be a larger council of the nation. It may echo the voice of the ministers, but it can never lift up the voice of the people.

Men boldly arraign and censure the laws of an individual sovereign or his minister, or the actions of any single man, when they patiently submit to those laws which emanate from a body of men, and they deem those actions right which are performed by a multitude. The decrees of a congress, or of a parliament, though as unjust as the decrees of a single man, are much more respected. When the debates of a legislative assembly till it forms a decision, be in secret, the delusions of interest, and the inflammation of passion, are likely to render its decrees unjust. The wisdom of a few men is but little better competent to govern nations than the wisdom of one. Both are inadequate. But, from the respect which men now pay to the decisions of deliberative assemblies, it is obvious, that, by establishing them, the principles of obedience are laid on a broader foundation. When such assemblies are under the influence of the crown, they add to its direct power all that indirect power which is derived from the subjects entertaining a conviction that the decisions of a number of legislators will be more correct than the decisions of one. They are very often, however, dictated by the wisdom or prejudice of one person only, and deliberative assemblies, under the control of the crown, are a covert means of stamping laws with the signatures of many wise men, which are often made by one very foolish man.

It is not a new spectacle for ministers to shelter an unpopular and an unjust action by the authority of parliament. Had it rested on their individual responsibility, were their names alone to be blackened with all its infamy, they would have shrunk from its performance. But when they can seduce or persuade a large assembly to sanction the deed, the infamy becomes so divided, and so small a portion falls to each individual’s share, that a large assembly, under the influence of the crown, may be considered as a convenient instrument for executing all its unjust or oppressive measures. We have seen how the assembly for Hannover is formed. If the parliaments which the monarchs may give to other countries be formed in a similar manner, they will only be a more secure means of carrying into execution unjust decrees. They will be what our House of Commons has sometimes been described to be,—a control upon the people, not a control for them.

There are many testimonies at present to the evil of numerous laws. There is a diseased desire to legislate common to this age, which crowds the statute-books of every European nation with numerous and contradictory enactments. It has been mentioned how mischievous the provincial governments of Germany are, merely from being composed of a number of persons who have nothing else to do but to govern. And long since the rest of these observations were written, Sir J. Mackintosh is said to have observed in the House of Commons, “that the revolution of 1688, by giving more power to parliaments, had given a facility to legislation which had been productive of many unjust laws.” Creating a legislative assembly supposes a necessity to make laws, and it encourages that desire to legislate which has already been so productive of evil. The doctrines of political economy have taught us that there exist laws made by nature which are eminently productive of prosperity; that these laws cannot be violated without impeding that prosperity, and that the whole of European legislation, in so far as the production of wealth is concerned, is, and has long been, a violation of all those natural laws by which wealth is produced. It is notoriously known, that individual industry is the source of national wealth; that the natural love of luxury and distinction constantly excites industry, and that this is never so well regulated, nor so productive, as when it is left entirely free. Nature has, therefore, already made laws for the conduct of individuals and of nations, which cannot be violated without prejudice, and which teach us that there is little or no necessity for human legislation. For the people to demand legislative assemblies, supposes them ignorant of this most important fact, and to create legislative assemblies can only tend to oppress future generations, even more than we are oppressed with the unwise regulations of a more ignorant age. There is room to doubt if legislative assemblies be the best means of promoting improvement, and, before such a quantity of political knowledge can be spread amongst the mass of the German people, as will make such assemblies beneficial by subjecting them to public control, it is possible that they may be abolished as pernicious in countries more advanced in political knowledge. Many evils are in Germany occasioned by governing too much, and this is likely to be increased rather than diminished by creating parliaments. Too much good is already expected from governments, and more will be expected from them as they are supposed to be better constituted. Men will augment that blind obedience they now pay to sovereigns when they transfer it to legislative assemblies, and the great failure of the German, perhaps of the European mind, is its habitual and undiscerning reverence for constituted authority. A host of governments and unproductive labourers is already one sore on the body politic of Germany, and this disease will be much increased by the creation of legislative assemblies.

The present power and prosperity of Great Britain excite envy amongst other European nations, and they imitate those institutions which are supposed to be the causes of this power and prosperity. It would be well for the world if they were accurately traced and thoroughly known. They are all to be referred to “the greater activity of our people.” And in Germany there seems to be but one opinion as to the causes of this activity. It is attributed to our free press and our representative system. Hence the Germans are loud in their demands for a similar system. Some men ridicule these demands from a hatred of freedom, others are jealous of our own superiority, and imagine no other people are capable of appreciating political liberty but ourselves, and they affirm that other nations are not yet qualified, by their knowledge, to enjoy it. There are others, again, who, quite in love with our own institutions, assume them as a standard of perfection, and measure the progress of other nations by the approximations they make to them. Without joining with either of these parties, the wish which the Germans have for a representative system like that of Great Britain, and their loud demands for it, appear to me both blind and rash; though they cannot be regarded as incapable of appreciating and of enjoying the highest degree of political liberty. If there be one people on earth who are qualified to receive and to enjoy freedom, that people is the Germans. The kindness of their hearts; the amiableness of their manners; the softness of their dispositions; and the quantity of agreeable knowledge which is spread amongst them, and which constantly employs, without subduing, the passions, will secure to every man, without the interference of an iron government, the free enjoyment of his property and his time, and may guarantee all the surrounding nations against any irruption from Germany, except the irruptions of knowledge. They are blind and rash, however, in their demands, because they value legislative assemblies too highly, and because it is certain that for them partially to imitate one of the institutions of Britain, when the whole frame of their society is different, can never promote that freedom to which they have so just a claim.

“Each nation,” says one of their own authors, “must imitate the spirit, and not the words and forms, of what is excellent in another country. Each one must form itself after its own manner. Some general ideas are applicable to all, but the manner in which they must be carried into execution must, and always will, be different in each nation that possesses a history.” The Germans, therefore, should build on German foundations, rather than seek to import the institutions of another country. They should recognize, as the basis of their proceedings, the most perfect state of society, and they should endeavour expediently to bring their own country to that state. They are now only imitating imperfection, confounding change with improvement, and adopting the errors of another people, instead of following their own wisdom.

The exclusive privileges of their towns were undoubtedly great evils, and ought to have been gradually and utterly abolished, but organized as they were, the residence, as they have long been, and are, of all that is polished and informed, they afford a ready means of opposing a consolidated mass of opinion to any acts of oppression. Their magistracy required to be made more popular; their exclusive privileges to be gradually rubbed away; their walls to be thrown down, and the entry to them made free. The Germans, however, seem not to admit of gradual improvements. They are boys in politics; they wish to knock down systems like card-houses; they would not reform the privileges of their towns; they abolished them.

I can but regard the writers of Germany as having accelerated the ruin of the political privileges of their ancient and venerable cities; as having gone before the steps of the sovereigns with their wishes and advice. The former usurpations of the towns, their lofty and unjustifiable pretensions, had excited a spirit of opposition and of hatred. They were regarded also as the remains of feudality. In truth they were; but they were the temples of that system, in which all that was innocent, and sacred, and free, had been harboured, and from which issued all the light of liberty and science. Much of the hatred against them was built on the pride of learning. Learned men listen with no patience to the pretensions of shoemakers and masons. They could not forget that low mechanics framed the laws of the guilds, which were therefore contemptible from their origin, and which they have unsparingly reprobated. I am sensible of the impolicy of the close corporations of the towns of Germany; but, by demanding the sovereign to reform them, the whole of their powers and privileges have fallen into the hands of government. It has acquired a greater power to resist the wishes of the people, and many powerful bodies of men, who were accustomed to act together for political purposes, have been entirely dissolved.

All the separate and particular privileges and laws of the thousand little Gaus, districts, and circles which there are in Germany, are all impolitic; but each one had a name peculiar to itself, and its inhabitants were in some measure accustomed to live and act together. It was on such local distinctions, and on such German and ancient foundations, that the Germans should have sought to build up their political edifice. The great want is, a means of giving political knowledge and power to the great mass of the people. The ancient distinctions found them collected into bodies, and fitted them to receive and transmit political power. German authors and German governments seem to have formed to themselves a more scientific and mathematical idea of these matters. They want an equality throughout to be established. They strive anxiously after a uniformity of organization to which we are utter strangers; and the consequence has been, that they have all been reduced to the same measure of submission to the power of the sovereigns. The striving after uniformity, and the wish to introduce a British constitution into Germany, have led the Germans not merely to forget all their ancient privileges and rights, but induced them to aid the sovereigns in trampling them under foot, and in seizing the whole powers of the several classes.

The long established privileges of a feudal nobility were most debasing and pernicious to the people; but the gradual increase in wealth and knowledge of the other classes, rendered the nobles no longer dangerous. The veneration which other people had for them it was right to destroy. It may however be doubted, if the society will not be more injured by all the powers and privileges of the nobles now centering in the hands of the sovereigns, than when they were divided amongst several people. One master is better than many; but from the natural progress of things, there was a greater chance of destroying the many than there is of resisting the one successfully, now when he concentrates in himself all the powers of the many. It would be better if the Germans could unite the nobles in favour of political improvements, rather than drive them, as they are now doing, by an eagerness to destroy them, into the palace of the monarch.

In England, a constitution seems to be regarded as the grand principles assented to by the monarch, as a guide for his mode of government, and by the people, as prescribing the extent of their obedience. In Germany, however, constitutions are asked from the sovereigns as favours, and accepted as gifts. This is fundamentally wrong. For the giver may annex to his gift what conditions he pleases. If the states be representatives of the people, or if they assemble by virtue of rights inherent in themselves, the extent of their powers must be previously established, or they can only be limited by the people whom they represent. All power rests in the people; it is nothing separate and distinct from muscular force; and they ought to determine what portions of it they will give their representatives, how many they will have when they shall meet, and what business they shall perform. When they ask constitutions from their sovereigns, however, they give them that right to prescribe conditions, which belongs to the people themselves. By the very petition they degrade themselves to servants and slaves; and where they ought to command on what conditions their delegated authority should be exercised, they entreat permission to approach a master. The petition implies, that the sovereigns possess a greater degree of political power than they ought to possess, or than they ever have before possessed. The only sovereign of Germany who ever possessed such a power was the king of Prussia; but his arbitrary assumptions of it in a time of disorder and distress were illegal, till they were sanctioned by his people imploring him as a favour to give back the rights which he had usurped.

A demand for new constitutions throws the power of new modelling all the ancient usages of a country into the hands of a sovereign. We have seen how this has been used in Hannover and Prussia, and we may thence infer that it will most generally be employed to strengthen and secure the power of the sovereign. There has yet been but one Washington in the world, and he was born and bred not a sovereign but a subject. From the mighty increase which has taken place in the power of the sovereign throughout Europe, it is manifest that its further increase is what men have most to dread, and to guard against, unless it should be absurdly supposed that the whole race of men ought to suffer their faculties and powers to be limited by some of the weakest of their fellow mortals.

Men are perhaps now, however, awake to the evils of unrestrained power. The recent conduct of most of the sovereigns and their ministers has taught them what to expect from an implicit confidence in the promises of kings. These gentlemen everywhere pursue the same sort of conduct, they promise largely, and they give to their subjects such a mockery of free institutions as the states of Hannover, in whose name they attempt to secure their own power. The circumstance of questioning their infallibility has taught them to take measures to secure ready obedience. They have increased their revenues, they have augmented their armies, they give constitutions suitable to the circumstances of the times, they establish numerous subordinate governments, they control education, they bribe the arts, they seduce the sciences; whatever they can do, that they do to secure and to augment their sovereign power. It may be hoped, however, that their attempts will be vain. They must stand or fall by opinion, and this most assuredly grows against them. Men begin to measure the value of governments, to mock at their preposterous claims to a power to make the race happy, and they must sink to the level ordained by general utility. It is from doubting the utility of sovereign power that we are most taught to deprecate and condemn a demand for new constitutions. It invites sovereigns to mix in all the affairs of men, till the most common concerns of life are not left to the guidance of individual wisdom; and these feeble mortals, encouraged by our reverence, charge themselves with the enormous, and when coolly examined, the impracticable power of regulating and promoting the happiness of the whole race of mankind.

What the Germans have already gained they have gained by means of their press, and they should rely on that alone for greater conquests. In fact, the only utility of a legislative assembly, such as that of the parliament of Great Britain, arises from its being the organ through which public opinion may make itself quietly known; and, since the force of public opinion has already, in several instances, procured the establishment of such assemblies, it surely may be relied on to effect alterations of less importance without the intervention of these intermediary organs. Public opinion is no tangible thing like the walls of a parliament-house or the members of a parliament, and in this age of figures, when every thing is numbered and counted, nothing is believed that cannot be submitted to the test of arithmetic. Public opinion is not, therefore, confided in unless it has a specific and regular mouth piece, that can be examined and measured. It has demolished empires, it has controlled and destroyed the mightiest power the world ever saw,—it has altered, and is constantly altering, every society in Europe,—it renders laws of no avail,—it supplies their place,—it punishes crimes that they can never reach,—and yet, because it can neither be seen nor put into a mathematical shape, men act as if they did not believe in its existence. Its organization costs nothing, its progress is exactly in proportion to the wants of the society, and it is on it the Germans should rely, rather than on new and expensive institutions.

The progress of public opinion in Germany is strongly marked by the homage which the former military despots of that country are now obliged to pay to the name of Freedom; they assume her dress and her language, and wear a mask resembling her, when their only aim is to destroy her. The very words, “Voice of the people,” “Council of the nation,” mark a deference in the sovereigns of Germany to the formerly despised people, and to public opinion, which were equally unknown and unhoped for prior to the French Revolution. It is only from tracing what men have performed that we can conceive what they may accomplish. The progress which the Germans have already made is a pleasing guarantee for their future improvement. We are quite certain that they must go on improving, though it is impossible for any imagination to tell where they will stop.

Since this was written, I have read two or three reports that another, a newer, and a finer constitution, is to be given to Hannover. It is now to have a House of Peers and Commons, which will be a still farther and still more ridiculous imitation of Great Britain, and a still farther complication of what is already a most complicated machine. Are not these changes sporting with solemn and sacred things? Are not men taught by them to despise governments altogether? And is not this modelling and remodelling Jacobinism on the part of sovereigns? Reform may lead to innovation, but change can only be followed by destruction.

CHAPTER XV.: hannover.—the army.—revenue.—taxes.

Strength of the army.—How recruited.—Landwehr.—Power of the sovereign over the people.—Military punishments.—Courts-martial composed liberally.—Sources of revenue.—Domanial accounts not submitted to the public.—Taxes.—Debts.—Expenditure.—Manner of levying taxes.—Complaints.

The army of Hannover consists of

Men. Horses.
Artillery, 1,315 200
Infantry, 10 battalions, 6,300
Cavalry, 8 regiments, 4,840 4376
Chasseurs, 100 100
Land dragoons, 212
Invalids, 160
General staff, 13
12,940 4676

The landwehr is estimated at 18,000 men, making the whole army 30,940 men.

The regular troops are recruited by voluntary enlistment. The landwehr is embodied by constraining certain classes of the inhabitants to enter into it. The whole country is divided into thirty districts, and each district provides men for one battalion, which bears the name of the district. The number of men to each battalion is 600, but it is the duty of the commander-in-chief, with the advice of the cabinet ministry, to determine what number of men each district shall furnish. Every man between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five, capable of carrying arms, is liable to serve in the landwehr. If the persons between these two ages are not numerous enough to complete the quota required, then the persons who have passed their twenty-fifth year, and have not reached their thirtieth year, are liable to serve, but cannot be called out till the first and second reserves have been both exhausted. These reserves consist of some particular classes of those persons who are between nineteen and twenty-five years old. Postillions, men whose trade requires some considerable time to learn it, and whose place could not be immediately supplied, and many others, form the first reserve; owners of manufactories, farmers keeping a team, the only son of a widow, or of parents who depend on him for support, and several others, form the second reserve. Public officers of all descriptions are entirely free.

The pastor of each parish is obliged to give the magistrates lists of all the males born or confirmed in the parish, who have entered their twentieth year. The magistrates add to them all the persons resident in the parish, thought not born in it, who have reached the same age. These lists are then publicly exposed in some well frequented place during eight days, in order that every person may know if his name be inscribed or not; and if it be not, and he be liable to serve, he must himself inform the magistrates thereof. The magistrates then fix a convenient time and place, to which every person liable to serve must go, or send some person properly qualified to represent him.

At this meeting there are four persons, namely, a landwehr commissioner, a military commissioner, the chief magistrate of the district, and an under magistrate as secretary, who form a sort of commission to examine any claims which the persons whose age renders them liable to serve may have on other grounds to be free from service. A surgeon, the amts assessor, the Vorsteher of the village, and two or three respectable inhabitants, must also be present. The parties are examined publicly. Individuals not content with the decision of these commissioners, may repeat their claims to the magistrate in writing, who communicates them to the landwehr commissioner; this latter must state his opinion to the cabinet ministry, which decides on the claims without further appeal.

After this examination, the landwehr commissioner makes out lists of the persons liable to serve, of those who are to be set in the reserves, of those who, being within the prescribed age, are yet fully free, and of those whose health or other circumstances do not allow them to serve at the moment. These lists are sent to the ministry, and are subjected to its review.

When the persons liable to serve are examined, they draw by lot, each one a number, and it is according to the numbers that the individuals are taken to fill up the vacancies of the battalions, or taken from the reserves when that is necessary. The people are at liberty to change these numbers one with another, and to provide substitutes when they do not themselves like to serve. The period of service is fixed at six years, but in time of war it may be indefinitely extended by the will of the sovereign.

All the persons liable to serve are exercised for four weeks every year, and on a certain number of Sundays after noon. During peace, they are permitted for the other eleven months of the year to follow their ordinary occupations. They must not, however, quit their place of residence without permission. They are only subjected to military discipline during the exercise time, and when engaged in actual service. It is at the same periods only that the landwehr man receives any pay, though the officers are permanently employed and paid. When the Hannoverian army is sent to the field, every regiment is to be composed of one battalion of regular troops, and of two battalions of landwehr. It is intended always to preserve these proportions, so that, with an army of 10,000 regular troops, a force of 30,000 men may be speedily assembled.

During the time the Hannoverian troops were in France, eighty men of each battalion were kept in constant service, and the sovereign may employ as many as he pleases. There is no limit to his power on this point; no specified occasion on which he may order the landwehr into actual service. He alone is the judge of the time proper to order the landwehr out, and of the number he will employ. His power is on this point only limited by his revenues. The ministry also decides, in the last resort, on questions of liability to serve, so that the whole young population of Hannover are entirely at the mercy of the sovereign, and may be subjected by him to military discipline whenever he pleases. It is commonly said that every man is bound to defend his country, but this can only mean that every man is bound to defend himself, and he defends his country because its laws and customs are valuable to him. In our time, however, politicians and military despots call themselves and their own petty ambition, interests, and passions, the country, and they are in the habit of commanding men to murder one another for their own despicable purposes. On this ground, such a power in the hands of any sovereign as this over the Landwehr is most pernicious. It allows him to compel his subjects, under the delusive words of fighting for their country, to engage in wars of aggression and violence. Such has been the use made of conscriptions in all ages.

The Hannoverian army, in its appearance and discipline, resembles our own. Punishments are still severe, and running the gauntlet is yet a common practice. A permanent military court takes cognizance of military offences. Courts-martial, when they are necessary, are composed of some members taken from the class to which the offender belongs. It was once proposed to introduce such a regulation into the British navy, and, at the same time, to interdict all arbitrary punishments. And it was supposed this would have the effect of rescuing our sailors from that severity of flogging which has long ago made our men of war the objects of every sailor’s detestation. Though it is reduced to practice in Hannover, it was laughed at in England as visionary.

The officers of the Hannoverian army receive their first commission from the bounty of the sovereign, but they are afterwards promoted according to their seniority. Every one must, however, first study for three years at the military school. They have the reputation of being plain, sensible, well-behaved men.

The revenues of the government of Hannover are derived from the domains and from taxes. The former are regarded as the private property of the sovereign, of which he may dispose in what manner he pleases. In former times, it appears that there was no other mode known in Europe of paying public functionaries than that of giving them the produce of certain portions of land. The nobles of Europe, some of whom have become modern sovereigns, were originally officers for the administration of justice, or of the army. Many of those of the north of Germany were appointed by Charlemagne, when he conquered the country, and were paid with a portion of land. Many of them, again, were originally elected by the people, who also gave them certain lands as their reward. The inhabitants of the north of Germany were originally free allodial possessors; their name of Saxons, or Sassen, is said to be derived from this circumstance. They are said to have frequently resigned their lands into the hands of certain chiefs, on condition of these chiefs protecting them. The lands were given back as feuds, and held on the mutual conditions of services and protection. Some of these lands have since escheated to the feudal lords, by the family of the vassal becoming extinct. But they were originally given to them that they might protect the vassal.

The property which formerly belonged to the church was begged, and claimed, and possessed, by its members, on condition of performing certain services for the people, such as teaching them, praying for them, buying them out of purgatory with holy words, and ensuring to them eternal happiness. At the Reformation, those persons who took the property of the church took with it, or ought to have taken with it, the duties which possessing that property imposed. It was from sources such as these that the nobles and sovereigns of Europe originally derived all the land cultivated by other people, which they acquired justly, that is, without robbery, conquest, and fraud. This property they are bound to administer for the service of the people, or at least to perform the duties which possessing it imposes on them, without further reward. The altered circumstances of the world, however, leave many of them no duties to perform, though they now claim the property as their hereditary right.

It is found from experience to be necessary that subjects should make their rulers submit to them the accounts of the receipts and disbursements of public money. The people of Hannover have, in some measure, the accounts of the taxes submitted to them through their representatives. In former times, the whole expences of the sovereign and of government were defrayed out of the domains. The extra supplies given by the states were always granted for specific purposes, and for short and stated periods. The sovereign only appealed to them when, from particular circumstances, such as war or his improvidence, the produce of the domains was insufficient for the public service. And from the domanial possessions of the sovereign having been originally given for the public service, the Hannoverians have an equal right to see the accounts of them with the accounts of the taxes. They would be justified should they demand that the produce of the domains, and the manner in which it is expended, be submitted to them. They, however, acquiesce in the sovereign using this produce as his private property, and, therefore, nothing is ever known concerning it but by conjecture.

Prior to the French occupation, the domanial income was supposed to amount to 1,875,000 Cassen-Thalers, or L. 312,500 Sterling. At present it is estimated at 3,000,000 Cassen-Thalers, or somewhat more than L. 500,000 Sterling.

There are seven taxes in Hannover, namely, 1 st, A land-tax; 2 d, A tax on things consumed in towns, called slaughter or licence-tax; 3 d, A tax on brewing and distilling; 4 th, A tax on salt; 5 th, Stamp duties; 6 th, Tax on imported articles; 7 th, A tax on income and on persons. The exact amount of each, and of all these taxes, is not known. The official accounts had been long promised, but were never ready to be submitted to the states. The following is supposed to be an approximation to the truth: Land-tax, L. 170,000; tax on consumption of towns, L. 20,000; on brewing and distilling, L. 67,000; on salt, L. 5000; stamps, L. 15,000; customs, L. 33,000; income and persons, L. 92,000. There is reason to believe that this statement is rather low, and that the whole produce of the taxes may be taken at L. 3,000,000 Thalers, or about L. 500,000, making, with the domanial revenues, a sum of L. 1,000,000 per year, as the whole revenue of Hannover. The complicated Hannoverian government, compared with the value of the concern administered, reminds one of the machine described by Smollet, which required several horses to put it in motion, and which was invented for the mighty purpose of cutting cabbages scientifically from the stalk.

The known and certain debts of the old provinces of Hannover, including Osnabrück, amounted in 1813 to 10,677,461 Thalers. The new provinces have also some debts; and some have been contracted since 1813, the amount of which is unknown. They are roughly estimated as making, together with the old debts, the sum of 20,000,000 Thalers, or about L.3,330,000. They bear interest at 4 per cent.

The following are some of the items to which the produce of the taxes is devoted, though the whole expenditure is not accurately known:—Interest of the debts, 800,000 Thalers. Military, 1,400,000. Administration of justice, 128,000. Education, and such good purposes, 65,000. States, 50,000; making together 2,443,000 Thalers, or about L.407,000 Sterling. How the remainder is disposed of is unknown. As the ministry and the greater part of all the servants of government are paid out of the L.500,000 arising from the domains; as part of the expences of the army are also paid out of these; and as a full court-establishment has always, till lately, been kept up in Hannover, it is not possible, as is supposed by some people, that our royal family have drawn a great deal of wealth from that country. Some it possibly may have drawn; but all that can be saved from such a revenue, with so complicated a system of administration, can certainly never have exceeded the income of an English gentleman.

The manner of levying these taxes is, of course, different, according to the tax. The land has at various times been measured and valued; and, according to these valuations, the occupier or owner was obliged to pay the proportion fixed. When the owner was either the monarch or a noble, the land he kept in his own hands paid no land-tax; but that which he let to tenants was paid for by them. But if the owner of the property was not noble, he paid the tax on the land he occupied.

At the gates of the towns which pay the slaughter tax, a man usually called a gate secretary, Thor Schreiber, collects the tax on all articles subject to it, as they enter the town. It seems to have been supposed, that the land-tax falling heavier on the inhabitants of the country than on the inhabitants of the towns, made this additional tax on the towns people necessary to equalize the burdens. The tax on meal, however, is yet levied on the inhabitants of the country. There are every where yet found what are called zwang Mühle, or mills, to which the inhabitants of certain districts must send their corn to be ground, and where a tax is levied on it. It was from the land-tax, and from the slaughter-tax, and from the zwang Mühle, and from the domanial tolls, that the nobility were formerly entirely free; to some of the other taxes they could not be subjected, except as consumers, as they never distilled or brewed, and the others they paid. According to a late regulation, they are now to pay their proportion of all these taxes. As landholder, the monarch is now to pay the land-tax from his domains.

When a person wants to brew, he is obliged to give notice to the proper officer of the quantity and nature of the grain from which he intends to brew, the day and hour when the malt is to be mashed, and the day and hour when the vats will be filled; and the tax is levied in certain proportions, according to the quantity of malt employed, and the quantity of beer obtained. If a small quantity of the latter is made, the quantity of malt employed is paid for in the proportion of 1s. per bushel for wheat malt, 8d. for barley, and 6d. for oats. If a large quantity of beer be obtained, it is paid for at so much per gallon.

The law orders every man who has a still to give notice of it to the collector of taxes. This still is measured, and the alembic or cover deposited with the collector; and each distiller is charged so much in proportion to the size of his still, every time he takes the alembic away. He may not take it for less than twenty-four hours, but for so much longer a period as he pleases; and he pays, in proportion to the time he has it, so much per day. Strict regulations expose any person to punishment who possesses, makes, buys, or repairs a still without giving notice of it to the tax-gatherer. The tax on salt is paid by the manufacturers before it is allowed to leave the place where it is made;—it is 5 d. per bushel. Stamp duties are collected as in our country. All law papers which are laid before the chanceries or other courts are subject to a stamp-duty each of 3d.; consequently all law proceedings are taxed. There are also a variety of contracts and bargains which are subjected to a greater stamp-duty.

The tax on imported articles, or customs, is levied by officers on the borders, or at the ports where they are introduced; and they are at present levied according to a strange principle.—Each hundred weight of goods, be they what they may, pays 2s. on entry. Liquids, of course, pay by the measure; and to the general rule there are some exceptions; as tobacco, which is subject to a greater duty; but a hundred weight of fine cottons, or cambrics, and a hundred weight of iron, are subjected to the same importation duty. This regulation saves a great deal of trouble. The effects of levying taxes on particular articles appears yet so imperfectly known, that this plan may be as useful as any other.

The people are obliged to make returns to the collectors of the number of persons in their families. The whole are divided into classes, and the individuals pay according to the number of heads, and according to the extent of their income, as they belong to one or other of the six classes. The sum paid is, in the first class, 2s. in the sixth class, 1½d. by each person per month. Children are paid for when above sixteen years old. The income-tax is levied in the same way; the people paying a greater or less tax, as they are in the first or sixth class.

The collection of the taxes is under the direction of a committee, or commission, of eleven members of the states, as before mentioned, the individuals of which are partly appointed by the crown, partly by the states. One portion of them are treasurers, the other superintend the levying. There are six principal directors immediately subordinate to this commission, each of which has the superintendence over certain districts. These districts are again divided into circles, and there is one or more collectors to each circle. Under these, again, are placed the gate secretaries, and other subaltern officers of the district.

The pressure of governments on subjects is at present so exclusively felt through taxes, that these latter are always sure to be complained of. At present, also, men complain more than before. The pressure they labour under is augmented, while the hope they had formed of its being decreased has been disappointed. The ex-emperor had so long been the object of reproach, he had done so many unusual and very often oppressive things, and men are so ready to attribute every evil they suffer to every thing but their own deeds and opinions, that it was only natural all Europe should believe he was the cause of every calamity and suffering. People consequently hoped when he was destroyed that golden days of enjoyment would be their lot. He is destroyed, and the only difference discovered is, that the evils suffered are still as great, but they are more systematically, regularly, and, according to opinion, legitimately inflicted.

It is in some measure because the hopes which the Hannoverians had formed to themselves have been disappointed, that they now complain very much of the weight of taxation. It does not appear to be absolutely so great as during the French usurpation, but it is very little short, and greater beyond all comparison than before that period. The restored government appears to have made it only a secondary consideration whether the people could support all its multiplied servants: its first care was to make them. It had a noble opportunity for benefiting all its subjects, and for acquiring their love. It has done nothing more than make a much greater number of dependants. Amongst these dependants are to be found nearly all the men of education in the country, and not a single person, therefore, appears to have thought of simplifying that immense machine whose complexity is the great cause of all the poverty, distress, and discontent, though the latter is not great, which are found in the country.

Some of the particular complaints which are made are directed against the inequality of the taxes. That, for example, on persons, by which a man who has 400 Thalers per year pays half as much as he who has 6000. Other complaints are directed against the impolicy of a tax, that, for example, on distillation, which allows smuggling from the neighbouring countries in which such a tax is not levied. On the subject of taxation, however, it will always be impossible to reconcile the wants of governments with the wants of the people. Taxes will always be unpopular, because he who pays never can discover the good he receives in exchange for his money.