[p. 576]
|576| culture, in this transition the German state did not accomplish this transition but succumbed to the convulsions of this transition, the members tore themselves loose to complete independence, the state dissolved. The Germans did not know how to find the mean between oppression and despotism – what [they] called universal monarchy – and complete dissolution.
The struggle for German freedom meant negatively the endeavour against universal monarchy, positively it became a winning of the complete independence of the members. The territories stood by their princes in it, were one with them, but they had to find that in the sovereignty of their princes German freedom was not won; on the contrary.
At the same time, however, the tendency of the estates of the realm is first of all for their own territory; they have lost all relation to the whole. Formerly princes often held territorial diets before they went to the Imperial Diet, and deliberated in common with the territory. The contradiction that the estates of the realm are most against wars of the Empire and contributions to costs and at the same time owe their continued existence to the Empire, – the separation of Germany has nested itself universally in the spirit of the people; Bavaria, Hesse, etc. regard themselves as foreigners, the estates of the realm, which stand in immediate connection with the people, express this separation most and regard as foreign, as not concerning them, everything that the prince does in his connections; they want precisely to remain for themselves, like the Swiss in their neutrality. But the whole constellation of circumstances is not for remaining for oneself; there is no longer any neutrality for a weak state in the vicinity [of] or even between powerful ones, when these wage war, – or the neutral can remain so, that is, let itself be plundered and maltreated by both.
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