Proceedings of the Estates of the Kingdom of Württemberg

[p. 538]

|538| a different form. The counter-remarks, refutations, expositions of grounds could not have entered into the style of royal rescripts, could not have become essays against essays, but would have been the content of oral addresses by the ministers or councillors of state in the sittings of the estates. These could likewise have been led to examination, to developments and discussions in general, and, if possible, have been torn out of the mutism and paper proceedings designated above.

The submission of the estates of 22 March, by Count von Waldeck, repeated the contrived turn, neither open nor sensible, of omitting in its concluding petition the direct demand for the old constitution and of presupposing it. If such a turn could seem quite dignified and brave, to make nothing of the kind the object of a petition and to want to keep every appearance of doubtfulness at a distance, it could lead to nothing; the matter had after all to come to direct speech, only later. – The concluding petition therefore went, with subtle refinement, only to this, that the King might consent to the extension of the constitution of the hereditary lands to the whole kingdom, for which purpose a deduction of the legal claims of the incorporated parts of the country to the constitution of the hereditary lands was added. – Further, after the royal resolution had demanded of the estates the statement of their further wishes, they turned this around and wanted to push it on to the government to begin with such a statement. In the entanglements of private affairs, in the practice of advocates, it may belong among the prudences to keep oneself closed, not to speak first, to wait for the other to come, to push it on to him to come out first with his claims and means; one retains the advantage of being able to proceed by attack without giving anything away and exposing oneself, and the like. But an assembly of estates must least of all take its prudence from the practice of advocates. – Instead of giving their wishes about

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