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Württemberg Democrat Ludwig Pfau on German Federalism (1864/1895)

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“If we only achieve unity, freedom will eventually come about.” One has to hear this absurd phrase every day. If the people who say such things would stop playing with their terms like boys with pebbles – without asking where they come from and what they consist of – they would have to reverse the sentence and say, “If we only achieve freedom, we will have unity as well.” On the very day the German states become free, nothing will prevent them from calling a parliament and realizing their unity. How, by contrast, is freedom supposed to develop from a unity established by force? And what value would there be in such a settlement, one that would constantly lead to new disagreements until this unity of despotism were eliminated so that freedom could take the place of unity? One has to fight precisely the false unity that lacks structure, and is therefore no unity at all, in order to win true unity that incorporates the multitudes; and if liberty requires unification to continue existing in the face of the other powers, then this is still no reason to purchase the external position of power at the price of ruining the internal welfare. Unity is nothing but a means to an end; the end is always freedom. However, nothing is more foolish and harmful under any circumstances than turning the means into an end, and in political life, there is no error more dreadful than paying for unity with freedom.

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The program of the People’s Party – [advocating a] coalition and parliament of the medium-sized states – has been called a Trias (triad) and its implementation has been declared impossible. However, the coalition of medium-sized states is not that Trias begot by professorial arrogance and princely servitude in the defiled bed of the Revolution: It is not an ultimate goal but only a beginning; not a purpose but a means; it only aims to be an initial core around which the remaining tribes may gather. And when it comes to possibility, is a German parliament – i.e., a representative body of the people that maintains Germanic governance instead of obeying a Prussian one – really possible under the auspices of Prussia? How do the dear hegemonists actually conceive of their monarchical Prussian German unity? Open Junker rule and disguised law of the jungle! A league of medium-sized states is supposedly impossible without dependence on foreign countries? Does one believe that the foreign countries will stand idly by while Prussia annexes territories to its heart’s content? Or that Austria would not want to have a share from its hostile brother? Do these latecomers from a different period not understand that, on the contrary, any national change by means of princely power will bring in its wake inevitable European conflicts, and that there is only one majesty against which the foreign countries do not dare to intervene, namely Its Majesty the People that orders Its highest house Itself in the name of Its national sovereignty? We ought to work toward Prussia finally understanding its mission, people tell us. Brilliant logic this is! Thus they deny us the right to constitute ourselves against the will of Prussia; but they expect of us the power to determine Prussia’s policy! People do not want to believe that as small states we are capable of developing our political life independently of the great powers, now that we still have our arms and hands free; and they would have us believe that we will wrest this development from the Prussian supreme authority once we have been tied and muzzled by it! Truly: one gets the impression of being in a madhouse.

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