powerful of educational means and be liberated from the shame that is so often thrown in their faces from abroad, because they have not yet achieved one of the highest ideals of free nations, one which has long been promised to them; public and oral jury trials, separation of administration from the judiciary, transfer of all branches of the judiciary, of administrative justice, and of police power to the courts, and drawing up practical police penal laws, liberation of the soil and its cultivators from medieval burdens, independence of local government in the administration of their affairs, reduction of expenditures for the standing army, and introduction of a popular militia etc. were all thoroughly reviewed; likewise the constitutional means appropriate for emphasizing the just claims of the people. Mainly, though, the assembly devoted time and attention to the means for combating impoverishment and suffering, as well as the associated question of the tax system. But since such important and sweeping subjects could not be discussed in just a few hours by way of certain proposals, such as those on the management of the system of poor relief and the instructional system, on income tax etc., a commission was nominated from delegates of different states in order to report and make proposals over the next few years concerning the tax system and conditions among the poorer classes, whereby special attention is to be paid to a just distribution of public burdens for bringing relief to the lower middle class and workers.
Source: Deutsche Zeitung [German Newspaper], Heidelberg, October 15, 1847; reprinted in F. Salomon, Die Deutsche Parteiprogramme [German Party Programs], 4th ed., 1932, no. 1, p. 69 ff.
Original German text reprinted in Ernst Rudolf Huber, ed., Deutsche Verfassungsdokumente 1803-1850 [German Constitutional Documents 1803-1850], vol. 1, Dokumente zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte [Documents on German Constitutional History], 3rd ed., rev. and enl. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1978, pp. 324-26.
Translation: Jeremiah Riemer
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