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Edict on Instituting a Popular Representative Body, issued by Frederick William III and State Chancellor Hardenberg (May 22, 1815)

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4. The functions of the National Representatives extend to the deliberation upon all the objects of legislation which concern the personal rights of the citizens and their property, including taxation.

5. A Committee is to be formed at Berlin without delay, which is to consist of experienced Officers of State, and inhabitants of the provinces.

6. This committee shall employ itself.

(a) On the organization of the Provincial Assemblies.
(b) The organization of the National Representation.
(c) On the framing of a Constitution according to the principles laid down.

7. It shall meet on the 1st of September this year.

8. Our Chancellor is charged with the execution of this decree, and is to lay before us the labours of the Committee.

He names the members of it, and presides at its meetings, but is authorized, in case of need, to name a Deputy in his room.



Source of English translation: Edmund Burke, ed., The Annual Register, or a View of the History Politics, and Literature, For the Year 1815. London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1824, pp. 387-88.

Source of original German text: Gesetz-Sammlung für die Königlichen Preußischen Staaten 1815 [Law Collection for the Royal Prussian States]. Berlin: Georg Decker, 1815, p. 103.

Reprinted in Walter Demel and Uwe Puschner, eds. Von der Französischen Revolution bis zum Wiener Kongreß 1789-1815 [From the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna, 1789-1815], Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung, edited by Rainer A. Müller, volume 6. Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1995, pp. 125-26.

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