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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "The Constitution of Germany," unpublished manuscript (1800-1802)

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“The Constitution of Germany”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel


Germany is no longer a state. The older constitutional lawyers who, in treating German constitutional law, had tried to fix a concept of the German constitution could not agree, until the more recent ones gave up the attempt. [ . . . ] There is no longer any argument about which concept of a constitution the German one belongs to. What cannot be understood, does not exist. If Germany were to be a state, this dissolution would have to be called anarchy, but parts of it have reconstituted themselves as states which retain in memory of a former bond a semblance of association.
[ . . . ]

The health of a state manifests itself generally not in the quietness of peace but in the commotion of war. Peace is a state of enjoyment and activity in isolation, when the government is a wise paternalism, which demands from the subjects only what is customary. In war, the strength of the cohesion of all with the whole is demonstrated, how much the state can demand of them and how much that is worth which all may be willing to do for it out of their own initiative and sentiment. Thus Germany has experienced in its war with the French Republic how it is no longer a state [ . . . ] the tangible results of this war are the loss of some of the most beautiful German regions and several millions of its inhabitants [the French had annexed the left bank of the Rhine in the Treaty of Luneville, 1802], a great burden of debt ... and several states losing their quality as states. [ . . . ]

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