Page:Marx - Revolution and Counter-revolution.djvu/137

Rh The same decree of the King of Prussia which dissolved the Constituent Assembly also proclaimed a new Constitution, founded upon the draft which had been made by a Committee of that Assembly, but enlarging in some points the powers of the Crown, and rendering doubtful in others those of the Parliament. This Constitution established two Chambers, which were to meet soon for the purpose of confirming and revising it.

We need hardly ask where the German National Assembly was during the “legal and peaceful” struggle of the Prussian Constitutionalists. It was, as usual, at FranfortFrankfort [sic], occupied with passing very tame resolutions against the proceedings of the Prussian Government, and admiring the “imposing spectacle of the passive, legal, and unanimous resistance of a whole people against brutal force.” The Central Government sent commissioners to Berlin to intercede between the Ministry and the Assembly; but they met the same fate as their predecessors at Olmütz, and were politely shown out. The Left of the National Assembly, i. e., the so-called Radical party, sent also their commissioners; but after having duly convinced themselves of the utter helplessness of the Berlin Assembly, and confessed their own equal helplessness, they returned to Frankfort to report progress, and to testify to the admirably peaceful conduct of the population of Berlin. Nay, more; when Herr Bassermann, one of the Central Government’s commissioners, reported that the late stringent measures of the