The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864, page 38 by Various Authors
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of a national diet, and proposed to the king the execution of the order issued in 1815. At length, February 8, 1847, he issued a royal charter, introducing, in fact, what had so often and so long before been promised, a constitution. The substance of the charter was that, as often as the Government should need to contract a loan, or introduce new taxes, or increase existing taxes, the diets of the provinces should be convoked to a national diet; that the committees of the provincial diets (as appointed in 1842) should be henceforth periodically, as one body, convoked; that to the diet, and, when it was not in session, to the committee, should be conveyed the right to have a deciding voice in the above-mentioned cases. April 11, 1847, the diet assembled for the first time; January 17, 1848, the united committee of the estates.
How long the nation would have remained contented with this concession to the request for a national representation under ordinary circumstances, is quite uncertain. In point of fact, this constitution hardly lived long enough to be christened with the name. Early in 1848 the French Revolution startled all Europe--most of all, the monarchs. They knew how inflammable the masses were; they soon saw that the masses were inflamed, and that nothing but the most vigorous measures would secure their thrones from overthrow. Frederick William Was not slow to see the danger, and take steps to guard Prussia against an imitation of the Parisian insurrection. On the 14th of March he issued an order summoning the diet to meet at Berlin on the 27th of April. Four days later he issued another edict ordering the diet to convene still earlier, on the 2d of April. This proclamation is a characteristic document. It was issued on the day of the Berlin revolution. It was an hour of the most critical moment. There was no time for long deliberation, and little hope for the preservation of royalty, unless something decided was done at once. He might have tried the experiment of violently resisting