Page:Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (1899).djvu/350

296 fruit of the united German institutions which were to be built up by the united efforts of the whole people—a curious resemblance to the manner in which Augustus also added an Imperial navy to the older Republican army.

The very form in which the Constitution was presented is characteristic; in the Parliamentary debates men complained that there was no preamble, no introduction, no explanation. Bismarck answered that this was omitted for two reasons: first, there had not been time to draw it up, and secondly, it would be far more difficult to agree on the principles which the Constitution was to represent than on the details themselves. There is no attempt at laying down general principles, no definitions, and no enumeration of fundamental rights; all these rocks, on which so often in Germany, as in France, precious months had been wasted, were entirely omitted.

And now let us turn to that which after the organisation of the army was of most importance,—the arrangement of the administration and legislation. Here it is that we see the greatest originality. German writers have often explained that it is impossible to classify the new State in any known category, and in following their attempts to find the technical definition for the authority on which it rests, one is led almost to doubt whether it really exists at all.

There are two agents of government, the Federal Council, or Bundesrath, and the Parliament, or Reichstag. Here again we see the blending of the old and new, for while the Parliament was now created