[p. 505]
|505| the expression contract of state has still seemed to contain the false thought as if in the state the concept of contract fitted truly upon the relation of prince and subjects, of government and people, and the legal provisions of private law which follow from the nature of a contract could, indeed should, find their application here. A little reflection lets one recognise that the connection of prince and subject, of government and people, has as the foundation of its relations an original, substantial unity, whereas in the contract one proceeds rather from the opposite, namely the equal independence and indifference of both parties towards one another; an agreement which they enter into with one another about something is a contingent relation, which comes from the subjective need and arbitrary will of both. From such a contract the connection in the state is essentially different, being an objective, necessary relation, independent of arbitrary will and pleasure; it is in and for itself a duty on which the rights depend; in the contract, by contrast, arbitrary will reciprocally concedes rights, from which only then duties flow. – With the transition of a land from its condition of fief of the Empire into a state, the previous self-subsistence of the two sides, mediated by a third intermediate and superior power, and with it also the whole contractual relation, has fallen away.
The fundamental error of the position which the Württemberg estates of the realm gave themselves lies in this, that they proceed from a positive right, regarded themselves wholly as if they still stood on this standpoint, and demand the right only on the ground that they formerly possessed it. They acted as a merchant would act who, on the strength of a ship that contained his fortune but which has been lost in a storm, wanted to continue the same way of life and to demand the same credit from others on it,
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