[p. 583]
|583| although it proceeded from the opposite standpoint, necessarily brings one unconsciously nearer to the rational.
In the royal decree of 16 October 1815 (Section XI, p. 26), with which the new sitting was opened, the standpoint of the negotiations is now determined in the following clear manner: that the estates hold that the principle of the legal claim of Old and New Württemberg to the old constitution must first be established; the King would thereby have to declare himself bound to transfer to New Württemberg even that which he held to be faulty in Old Württemberg; to this he could, according to his best-grounded conviction, not be bound. Even if he were convinced that the claim of Old Württemberg to its former condition of right was still binding for him, which was not the case, he could readily agree to its restoration if it concerned the old land alone; nor was he minded not to take into account the former relations of right of the newly acquired parts of the country. But there could be no question of arranging the so different parts of the kingdom each according to its peculiar norms, but of bringing about, by common agreement, a constitution equally appropriate to old and new relations. – It was further in this opening no longer a question of the royal constitution; rather, alterations which the King reserved to himself as required for the welfare of the state are called only individual provisions and are to be made valid by way of negotiation. He further declared that he would retain from the old constitution whatever could ever be reconciled with the present time and a good administration of the state. The recognition of the old principle of right in its whole extent was in itself useless and contrary to the nature of the matter, but what is true was exhausted by the recognition that everything usable
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