I could list a number of political questions that are essentially, even if indirectly, connected to the freedom of the Church. One example is the great question that now touches every heart in Germany: the question of the head [of state], which is to be viewed as purely political. As you know, they agreed in the Paulskirche to a hereditary imperial rule*; I can take no credit for this accomplishment from March. (Sustained applause.) Those who voted for it did not know what imperial rule is; they were simply giving their vote to a Prussian super-monarchy.
Imperial rule is a historical institution, it died; the renewed version must be earned and granted by the will of the entire nation; it is not so much the upper strata of the population as the mass of the people, and I abide by them, who want the old imperial rule. (Bravo) I do not only want to include in the German Empire those who speak German; I also want to raise up other peoples [nations] and have them delight in the German spirit, education, and character.
This requires a Kaiser who has the power to draw these other peoples closer. By way of the German spirit, the Slavic peoples of the Austrian monarchy need to be removed from Russian influence. But even those ruined fragments of states that used to belong to the German Empire and still belong to the German tribe, they lead an ephemeral life; they will not find permanent rest until they are drawn toward Germany again. So it is with Switzerland, Holland, and others. The German nation needs to recover the greatness that is historic, that previously lived in it, and of which it is still capable. (Bravo) Imperial rule was based on the stewardship of the Church, whose protector was the Kaiser as advocatus ecclesiae. German imperial rule was rooted in Catholicism, it was the greatest Catholic idea in history. And should we behave just negatively toward this imperial rule, should we have no sympathy for it? We dare not, this would be betrayal of the Fatherland. (Bravo) Imperial rule dare not be mutilated, it dare not sink down to the level of a half Germany, rather it will be just as it lives in the hearts of the people. (Bravo)
It is the duty of every Catholic to legally prevent the idea that imperial rule should not be carried out at the cost of Germany as a whole, [and] thus have the renewal of genuine imperial rule hindered. If the Catholic associations participate in bringing about this [imperial rule], they will certainly be violating neither the spirit nor the statutes of the Catholic Association as they were concluded in Mainz.
It is said that we can expect an exclusivity to enter, from which hostilities will follow that will separate one association from another. But the Catholic spirit is not divisive, but rather reconciliatory, and if politics in a Catholic sense is going to be practiced, its scope should likewise be reconciliatory.
* The National Assembly agreed on this in March 1849.
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