[p. 494]
|494| gulden; and if in other states the holding of the supreme war chest, especially if it should be so small, is indeed not made publicly known, this announcement in the case of the German Empire has no further influence on the hostile operations of war and peace against the operation of the Empire.
The principles which prevail in this, that the resolutions of the majority have no binding force for the minority, that on account of other connections one cannot enter into the levies of Roman months resolved upon by the majority, are the same as those which hold in regard to the duties of the estates concerning the military power.
If there formerly was, in regard to finances, a kind of state power in the customs duties of the Empire, levies on the cities of the Empire, and the like, those times were nevertheless so thoroughly remote from the Idea of a state and the concept of a universal that these revenues were regarded as the complete private property of the Emperor, and the Emperor could sell the revenues, while the estates — which is altogether incomprehensible — could buy them or make them into a pledge subsequently rendered irredeemable, just as immediate public power was also bought or taken in pledge, than which a stronger trait of barbarism of a people that forms a state cannot be found.
It cannot be denied, however, that the need to create finances for Germany has been felt from time to time, and proposals have been made to found sources of money for the Empire as a state. Because at the same time the estates could not be disposed to bring about this monetary power by laws requiring contributions, since thereby something similar to the arrangement as it is in a state would have come about, two things would have had to be united: to find a lasting fund for the state, and to burden the estates neither nor to bind them in any way [and] manner. Because the circumstance that the estates would be neither burdened
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