Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/56

 the empire, state, province and commune. The word state means here an individual state, not the state in the general sense of its economic relations in conformity with organized society. We have here for the first time stated that we consider only that state and form of government which rests on the broadest democratic basis, arises directly from the people and is by them controlled, as being in harmony with the principles of the people's sovereignty.

We demand that the people be rulers of their own fate, that the well-being of the people be the highest law and their will be subordinate to no other will. We demand that all laws and arrangements that hinder the practical proof and activity of the people's will be done away with. At a glance every one will perceive that herein is comprehended a complete transformation of the arrangement of the state. It means the absolute democratization of the political conditions in Germany.

Corresponding to this principle we demand the election of the magistrates by the people. The right of self-government by the people makes this demand a logical consequence. But we formulate here a new demand—the accountability and responsibility to the people of the officers elected. That we say accountability and responsibility is no tautology, no repeating of two words that mean essentially the same. By the accountability of officials it is usual to understand the political accountability prescribed by the constitution and the laws. We wish something more. We require also the personal civil law responsibility of the officers for all that they do.

I said at the time I explained this idea in the Reichstag: "The time will, it is to be hoped, come in Germany when the victims of the anti-socialist laws will be compensated and when the authors of these laws, all those who by means of the same have wronged thousands and