[p. 608]
|608| all pledge themselves to them; but each individual seeks to exempt himself from them as much [as] possible, he puts his contribution out of relation with the whole, regards his advantage as separated from the universal, and so there is always with indirect impositions an enormous shortfall against what they should bring in. So too it has gone in Germany with public power; all estates demand protection from the German Empire, call for its help, demand that the German Empire protect them, acknowledge, especially the smaller, that without the whole they cannot maintain themselves; but at the same time each seeks from public power as much as possible. The estate’s own advantage is the general maxim, and in place of a constitution [has] come politics. Instead of the coherence of the Empire, to maintain it as the highest, one’s own advantage. First the power for it had to be procured. This was done by alliances with foreign powers, these alliances have become legal. Enlargement of one’s own power, troops in themselves insignificant, except with Brandenburg – alliances among themselves, seems still the best! – Only two things seemed possible, crudity knew only, after the abolition of living together and common action, the relation of boundless domination of public power, of blind power and servile submission. The way out under common fixed laws unknown, but practice has triumphed over lawless domination, but at the same time abolished all social connection, abolished tyranny through anarchy and made the latter legal. Tyranny stands above anarchy, for in it the connection to one state at least remains.
This detachment from the supreme public power has occurred intentionally; but the consequence, anarchy and deprivation of security, was not seen; clumsy.
34)Enlargement of the states through inheritances, especially connections of the same with foreign ones. This circumstance is the deepest blow to the state; nothing is thereby violated in the constitution, in right; no foreign prince among those who still make up Germany (with the Italian fiefs it is different) has abolished the bond of the Empire. The German Empire has reserved all its rights. But the change is astonishing. The relation of the power of the estates to the polity is wholly changed, and such a thing is called a revolution, which, without a jot needing to be changed in public law, has crept over it and overturned it completely. With
34) Editors: the following paragraph in the margin
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