[p. 577]
As much as for insight the interest of the territories and of the estates of the realm is bound up with there being a state power in Germany, so much has this interest in Germany become foreign to the territories themselves for action, – for Germany: whom does this country still concern, whence should a patriotism for this country come? What passive advantage the individual territories and also the estates of the realm have from Germany, they enjoy, recognise it, but do nothing for it; for it lies deep in human nature to interest oneself only in that for which one can act, for which one can co-decide and cooperate, in which the will can be. A kind of cooperation for the universal would have to be procured for the territories.
[III. Proposals for the Reform of the Constitution]
Cross-reference: Who is to make the constitution is treated in the Remark to § 273.
If Germany is not, after some wars, to have the fate of Italy, of coming for its greatest part into the power of foreign powers, and the great majority of its estates that of becoming gradually wholly dependent politically on these great powers, of being gradually (and the smaller and ecclesiastical soonest) wholly swallowed up – [even if] some, two or three or the like, maintain themselves somewhat longer as states of the size of a circle or of a couple – if it is not to have this fate, it would have to organise itself anew into a state. The essential that constitutes a state, namely a state power, guided by the head, with the cooperation of the parts, [would have to be] established. Everything non-essential, dependence of the administration of justice, administration of revenues, religion, everything must be excluded from the necessary that belongs to a state.
A continued existence of the German Empire would be possible only in such a way that a state power were organised and the German people came once more into relation with Emperor and Empire.
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