Proceedings of the Estates of the Kingdom of Württemberg

[p. 499]

|499| praetor is lacking who would have to give this decision. What matters is solely the nature of the matter, and this is in the present case very simple. The change which has been preparing for centuries and has been completed late enough is the already mentioned transition of the more considerable German lands from the relation of fiefs of the Empire into the relation of sovereign lands, i.e. of states. In the former the prince on the one side, land and people on the other – although the latter as subjects (often even to the degree of serfdom) – could stand over against one another with an independence which on both sides could almost approach rights of sovereignty. For between the two stood Emperor and Empire as an external bond, which held both in this self-subsistence and also held them together, barely, – as the private man is an independent person against the private man. In the relations which they tie with one another they proceed from subjective need and arbitrary will; but only because they are at the same time in one state, have an authority and courts above them, do relations become contracts, does it have a complete actual sense to conclude contracts, and are individuals upheld in their self-subsistence and in their relations. But the more impotent that intermediate and superior power proved itself, the worse off both parties had to be in their collisions, because, bound to one another in their independence at once as government and subjects, they could not get apart.

Such a condition, in which prince and people were linked by so external a power, brought with it that actual rights of the state were to be found on the side of the subjects. To rights of this kind belong most of those which flowed from the feudal relation; yet it would be superfluous to touch upon such here, because in Old Württemberg there was found only an insignificant nobility, whose rights were in general of no great consequence for the relation of the state. But essential mention is deserved by

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