Every question to be submitted to the general assembly of the Diet is first discussed in the ordinary assembly, where it is decided by a majority of votes. But, in the general assembly, (in pleno,) two thirds of all the votes are necessary to a decision. The ordinary assembly determines what subjects are to be submitted to the general assembly. But all questions concerning the adoption or alteration of the fundamental laws of the Confederation, or organic regulations establishing permanent institutions, as means of carrying into effect the declared objects of the union, or the admission of new members, or concerning the affairs of religion, must be submitted to the general assembly; and, in all these cases, absolute unanimity is necessary to a final decision. (b)

The Diet has power to establish fundamental laws for the Confederation, and organic regulations as to its foreign, military, and internal relations. (c)

All the States guarantee to each other the possession of their respective dominions within the union, and engage to defend, not only entire Germany, but each individual State, in case of attack. When war is declared by the Confederation, no State can negotiate separately with the enemy, nor conclude peace or an armistice, without the consent of the rest. Each member of the Confederation may contract alliances with other foreign States, provided they are not directed against the security of the Confederation, or the individual States of which it is composed. No State can make war upon another member of the union, but all the States are bound to submit their differences to the decision of the Diet. This body is to endeavor to settle them by mediation; and if successful, and a juridical sentence becomes necessary, resort is to be had to an austrëgal proceeding, (AusträgalInstanz,) to which the litigating parties are bound to submit without appeal. (d)

Each country of the Confederation is entitled to a local constitution of States. (e) The Diet may guarantee the constitution established by any particular State, upon its application; and thereby acquire the right of settling the differences which may

(b) Acte final, art. 58. Wiener Schlussacte, arts. 12-15. (c) Acte final, art. 62. (d) Acte final, art. 63.

(e) “In allen Bundesstaaten wird eine landeständische Verfassung stattfinden.” Bundesacte, art. 13.

arise respecting its interpretation or execution, either by mediation or judicial arbitration, unless such constitution shall have provided other means of determining controversies of this nature. (f)

In case of rebellion or insurrection, or imminent danger thereof in one or more States of the Confederation, the Diet may interfere to suppress such insurrection or rebellion, as threatening the general safety of the Confederation. And it may in like manner interfere on the application of any one State; or, if the local government is prevented by the insurgents from making such application, upon the notoriety of the fact of the existence of such insurrection, or imminent danger thereof, to suppress the same by the common force of the Confederation. (g)

In case of the denial or unreasonable delay of justice by any State to its subjects, or others, the aggrieved party may invoke the mediation of the Diet; and if the suit between private individuals involves a question respecting the conflicting rights and obligations of different members of the union, and it cannot be amicably arranged by compromise, the Diet may submit the controversy to the decision of an austrëgal tribunal. (h)

The decrees of the Diet are executed by the local governments of the particular States of the Confederation, on application to them by the Diet for that purpose, excepting in those cases where the Diet interferes to suppress an insurrection or rebellion in one or more of the States; and even in these instances, the execution is to be enforced, so far as practicable, in concert with the local government against whose subjects it is directed. (i)

The subjects of each member of the union have the right of acquiring and holding real property in any other State of the Confederation; of migrating from one State to another; of entering into the military or civil service of any one of the confederated States, subject to the paramount claim of their own native sovereign; and of exemption from every droit de détraction, or other similar tax, on removing their effects from one State to another, unless where particular reciprocal compacts have stipulated to the contrary. The Diet has power to establish uniform laws relating to the freedom of the press, and to secure to authors the copyright of their works throughout the Confederation. ()

(ƒ) Wiener Schlussacte, art. 60.
(h) Ib. arts. 29, 30.
(j) Bundesacte, art. 18.

(g) Wiener Schlussacte, arts. 25-28.
(i) Wiener Schlussacte, art. 32.

The Diet has also power to regulate the commercical intercourse between the different States, and the free navigation of the rivers belonging to the Confederation, as secured by the treaty of Vienna. (k) 28

The different Christian sects throughout the Confederation are entitled to an equality of civil and political rights; and the Diet is empowered to take into consideration the means of ameliorating the civil condition of the Jews, and of securing to them in all the States of the Confederation the full enjoyment of civil rights, upon condition that they submit themselves to all the obligations of other citizens. In the mean time, the privileges granted to them by any particular State are to be maintained. (1)

Of the in

States of

the Ger

federation.

§ 48. Notwithstanding the great mass of powers thus ternal sover- given to the Diet, and the numerous restraints imposed eignty of the upon the exercise of internal sovereignty, by the individual manic Con- States of which the union is composed, it does not appear that the Germanic Confederation can be distinguished, in this respect, from an ordinary equal alliance between independent sovereigns, except by its permanence, and by the greater number and complication of the objects it is intended to embrace. In respect to their internal sovereignty, the several States of the Confederation do not form, by their union, one compositive State, nor are they subject to a common sovereign. Though what are called the fundamental laws of the Confederation are framed by the Diet, which has also power to make organic regulations respecting its federal relations; these regulations are not, in general, enforced as laws directly binding on the private individual subjects, but only through the agency of each separate government adopting them, and giving them the force of laws within its own local jurisdiction. If there be cases where the Diet may rightfully enforce its own resolutions directly against the individual subjects, or the body of subjects within any particular State of the Confederation, without the agency of the local governments, (and there appear to be some such cases,) then these cases, when they occur, form an exception to the general character of the union, which then so far becomes a

(k) Bundesacte, art. 19. Acte final, arts. 108-117. (1) Bundesacte, art. 16.

[28 The duties as to commerce and free navigation have not been performed by the Diet, but by a Zollverein, of which Prussia and nearly all the German States are members, and in which Austria is indirectly included by the operation of a treaty with Prussia.]— D.

compositive State, or supreme federal government. All the members of the Confederation, as such, are equal in rights; and the occasional obedience of the Diet, and through it of the several States, to the commands of the two great preponderating members of the Confederation, Austria and Prussia, or even the habitual influence exercised by them over its councils, and over the councils of its several States, does not, in legal contemplation, impair their internal sovereignty, or change the legal character of their union.

Of the external sover

§ 49. In respect to the exercise by the confederated States of their external sovereignty, we have already seen eignty of that the power of contracting alliances with other States, these States. foreign to the Confederation, is expressly reserved to all the confederated States, with the proviso that such alliances are not directed against the security of the Confederation itself, or that of the several States of which it is composed. Each State also retains its rights of legation, both with respect to foreign powers and to its co-States. (a) Although the diplomatic relations of the Confederation with the five great European powers, parties to the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, 1815, are habitually maintained by permanent legations from those powers to the Diet at Frankfort, yet the Confederation itself is not habitually represented by public ministers at the courts of these, or any other foreign powers; whilst each confederated State habitually sends to, and receives such minister from other sovereign States, both within and without the Confederation. It is only on extraordinary occasions, such, for example, as the case of a negotiation for the conclusion of a peace or armistice, that the Diet appoints plenipotentiaries to treat with foreign powers. (b)

According to the original plan of confederation as proposed by Austria and Prussia, those States, not having possessions out of Germany, were to have been absolutely prohibited from making alliances or war with any power foreign to the Confederation, without the consent of the latter. But this proposition was subsequently modified by the insertion of the above 63d article of the Federal Act of 1815. And the limitations contained in that article upon the war-making and treaty-making powers, both of the Con

(a) Klüber, Oeffentliches Recht des teutschen Bundes, §§ 137-143.
(b) Klüber, §§ 148, 152 a. Wiener Schlussacte, § 49.

federation itself and of its several members, were more completely defined by the Final Act of 1820. (c)

It results clearly from these provisions, that such of the confederated States, as have possessions without the limits of the Confederation, retain the authority of declaring and carrying on war against any power foreign to the Confederation, independently of the Confederation itself, which remains neutral in such a war, unless the Diet shall recognize the existence of a danger threatening the federal territory. The sovereign members of the Confederation, having possessions without the limits thereof, are the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, the King of the Netherlands, and the King of Denmark. Whenever, therefore, any one of these sovereigns undertakes a war in his character of a European power, the Confederation, whose relations and obligations are unaffected by such war, remains a stranger thereto; in other words, it remains neutral, even if the war be defensive on the part of the confederated sovereign as to his possessions without the Confederation, unless the Diet recognizes the existence of a danger threatening the federal territory. (d) 29

It seems, also, to result from these provisions, taken in connection with the above-mentioned modification in the original plan of Confederation, that even those States not having possessions without the limits of the Confederation, retain the sovereign authority of

(c) Wheaton's Hist. Law of Nations, 447, 448, 457-460.

(d) Wiener Schlussacte, arts. 46, 47. Klüber, Oeffentliches Recht des teutschen Bundes, § 152 f.

[29 During the Italian war of 1859, Austria invoked the 47th article of the Final Act, on the allegation that her territory within the Confederation was threatened by France and Sardinia. Prussia refused to consider that war as a matter affecting the Confederation, and gave official notice that she would not be bound by a decision of a majority of the Diet to that effect. At the same time, she agreed to the federal contingent being put upon a war footing. The more southern German powers favored the Austrian application; but the attitude of Prussia defeated it. Russia also remonstrated against any construction of the confederative union which carried it beyond a purely defensive combination. Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1859. Annual Register, 1859. The correspondence of 1859 shows that the construction of the articles relating to defence is not settled; that the action of the Confederation depends largely on either Prussia or Austria; and that the parties to the treaty of Vienna consider themselves entitled to a voice, to the extent of seeing that the Confederation adheres to its limits of duties, they having admitted it into the public law of Europe, and being interested in its action. The threat of coercion by Prussia on Saxony, in 1865, and the acquiescence of Austria, and the results of the Schleswig-Holstein war (vide infra), have combined to impair very much the guaranties of the Confederation.]— D.