Proceedings of the Estates of the Kingdom of Württemberg

[p. 594]

|594| itself driven from time to time to take ran into straits against its position. It could neither, as an Old Württemberg assembly of estates, exercise rights of cooperation – for it was not one -, nor rights which would have been conceded to it by the royal Charter – for this it did not want -, nor just as little according to the new settlement, for this had not yet come about. Hence later still, on account of this embarrassment whether the assembly was competent for this, was constituted or not constituted, discussions occur in June 1816 (Section XXV). The royal ministry rejected the attempts of the estates to assert themselves as constituted by pointing to the nature of their relation at that time.

The business concerning the constitutional settlement, however, the assembly had transferred to its commissioners and committees. At first (from 1 December 1815) it held the sittings in which it was reported to on such matters secret and kept separate minutes of them. But after the detail of the negotiations had been transferred to the committee, it (on 25 January 1816) again abolished this secrecy. – Earlier already, on the 15th of the same month (Section XVII, p. 144), the commissioners had made the motion that the individual sections of the constitutional work should not be brought before the assembly, but that the whole should first be completely worked out. Herr Knapp submitted in the committee (13 February 1816, Section XIX, p. 75), among other things, that with the manner of negotiation ordered, apart from its not befitting, as a diplomatic one, the relation between the King and [the] estates, only five members [regularly] and seven (the committee then consisted of twelve) only at times were active and effective, all others however being almost merely occupied with insignificant matters. On the question how during the negotiations the assembly in general and in relation to the constitution was to exercise its vocation, the resolution was now passed (on 29 February 1816, Section XX, p. 28) that not one chapter after the other,

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