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Lawyers, Liberalism, and Procedure: The German Imperial Justice Laws of 1877–79

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Kenneth F. Ledford
Kenneth F. Ledford
Affiliation:
Case Western Reserve UniversityCleveland, Ohio
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Extract

Although Franz Schnabel described the nineteenth century as the “century of the formal Rechtsstaat,” most political and social historians of the German Kaiserreich have paid surprisingly little attention to the legal aspect of the development of society and polity. Textbooks in German history contain only brief mention of the enactment of legal reforms, either naming them without comment or subsuming them under administrative initiatives of the National Liberal party. More importantly, even standard works on the history of liberalism give precious little space to the important legislative reforms that are the focus of this essay; James J. Sheehan devotes only a paragraph to the adoption of the Imperial Justice Laws of 1877–79, and Dieter Langewiesche stresses the importance of legal unity and these reforms to liberals, but also in only one paragraph. In general, historians of German liberalism have left efforts to examine the development and unification of the German legal system after 1848 to legal historians, who are housed in Germany in the separate legal faculties and focus their work primarily on the history of legal doctrine. By failing to examine law as a historical artifact, however, political and social historians have also overlooked the Weberian message that law is a crucial analytical entry point into any understanding of modem society. Contemporary legal scholars stress that legal and social systems are inextricably intertwined, and that neither can be understood without a grasp of the other. Understanding legal discourse helps historians understand broader social discourse.

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Central European History , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 165 - 193
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1993

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References

An earlier version of this article was read at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in San Francisco in 1989. I would like to thank Roger Chickering, Michael Grossberg, David Hammack, Douglas Klusmeyer, Vernon Lidtke, and Mack Walker for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

1. Schnabel, Franz, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, 4 vols. (Freiburg i. Br., 1929–1937, reprint ed. Frankfurt, 1988)Google Scholar, vol. 3, “Vorwort,” v.

2. Michael John recently recounted the shortcomings of some of the standard textbooks; John, Michael, Politics and the Law in Late Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Origins of the Civil Code (Oxford, 1989), 2.Google Scholar More recent work moves toward rectifying prior neglect. Impressive treatments of substantive law, especially the background to the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and the growth of legal positivism, are found in Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, vol. 1, Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist (Munich, 1990), 655–65, and vol. 2,CrossRefGoogle ScholarMachtstaat vor der Demokratie (Munich, 1992), 193–201.Google ScholarNipperdey, calls the legal reforms discussed in this article “completely decisive for legal life and the legal order” and discusses their interconnectedness; Deutsche Geschichte 1866–1918, 2:188–91.Google Scholar

3. Sheehan, James J., German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1978), 138–39,Google Scholar and Langewiesche, Dieter, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1988), 167–68.Google Scholar Some writers devote significant attention to the centrality of law to the German liberal program but without exploring its procedural dimension, despite the intrinsic importance of procedure. Otto Pflanze, in two insightful analyses, recounts the background to legal unification and the political struggle over adoption of the Imperial Justice Laws, but he remains within the paradigm of the compromise-readiness of the National Liberal leaders; Bismarck and the Development of Germany, 3 vols. (Princeton, N.J., 1990), vol. 2,Google ScholarThe Period of Consolidation, 1871–1880, 149–53, 347–50. Harris, James F. devotes a chapter to “The Role of Law” in his biography of Eduard Lasker, stressing Lasker's steadfast commitment to legal uniformity; A Study in the Theory and Practice of German Liberalism. Eduard Lasker, 1829–1884 (Lanham, Md., 1984), 45–60.Google Scholar

4. Legal history as practiced in German legal faculties is often a highly abstract exercise in tracing the development of narrow points of doctrine and ancient or medieval precepts of Roman law. For a comment upon the narrow nature of German legal history periodicals, see John, Michael, “The Peculiarities of the German State: Bourgeois Law and Society in the Imperial Era,” Past and Present 119 (05 1988): 105–31, 106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Nevertheless, legal historians have devoted more attention to law than have social historians. Most recently, the process of the legal unification of the German Empire has attracted attention as a potential guide for steps toward greater integration within the European Community. See in particular Stolleis, Michael, “‘Innere Reichsgründung' durch Rechtsvereinheitlichung 1866–1880,” in Starck, Christian, ed., Rechtsvereinheitlichung durch Gesetze. Bedingungen, Ziele, Methoden (Göttingen, 1992), 15–41Google Scholar, which emphasizes steps toward unification of substantive law but curiously omits discussion of the Imperial Justice Laws.

5. Weber, Max, “Economy and Law (Sociology and Law),” in Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus, eds., Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley, 1978), 2:641–900,Google Scholar and Unger, Roberto Mangabeira, Law in Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (New York, 1976), 66–68, 181–92, 216–20.Google Scholar

6. Gordon, Robert W., “Critical Legal Histories,” Stanford Law Review 36 (1984): 57–125, 90CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “It seems much more probable that the specific legal practices of a culture are simply dialects of a parent social speech and that studying that speech helps you to understand the dialect and vice-versa.”

7. David Blackbourn, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: Reappraising German History in the Nineteenth Century,” in idem and Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarities of German History (Oxford and New York, 1984), 157–292, 190–95.Google Scholar An insightful and persuasive essay that also points to a way out of the Sonderweg debate is Konrad H. Jarausch and Larry Eugene Jones, “German Liberalism Reconsidered: Inevitable Decline, Bourgeois Hegemony, or Partial Achievement,” in idem, eds., In Search of a Liberal Germany. Studies in the History of German Liberalism from 1789 to the Present (New York, Oxford, and Munich, 1990), 1–23,Google Scholar which reviews the historiography of German liberalism and calls for a focus upon specific tensions within the German liberal tradition instead of a formulaic opposition of success or failure; ibid., 23.

8. John, Politics and the Law, 241–57;Google Scholar the essentials of John's argument are also found in his articles, John, Michael, “The Politics of Legal Unity in Germany, 1870–1897,” Historical Journal 28 (1985): 341–55,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and idem, “The Peculiarities of the German State,” 105–31.

9. Wieacker, Franz, Privatrechtsgeschichte der Neuzeit, 2d ed. (Göttingen, 1967), 462, 464–68,Google Scholar argues that procedure was more important than substance because it is one of “the most important guarantees of the Rechtsstaat” and also a realm in which “the judicial policy demands of society on the state come into earlier and more direct expression than with substantive private law.” He stresses the importance of legal unification to the entrepreneurial middle class; ibid., 464.

10. The Constitution of the Courts (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz, GVG) was promulgated on 27 January. 1877 in the Reichsgesetzblatt (hereafter cited as RGB) (1877): 41ff.; the Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO) promulgated on 30 January. 1877 at RGB (1877): 83ff.; the Code of Criminal Procedure (Strafprozessordnung, StPO) of 1 Feb. 1877 at RGB (1877): 253ff,; and the Lawyers' Statute (Rechtsanwaltsordnung, RAO) of 1 July 1878 at RGB (1878): 177ff. The laws all entered into force in the German Empire on 1 October 1879.

11. Wieacker, Privatrechtsgeschichte, 466.

12. The term “professional project” is drawn from the theoretical work on professionalization by Larson, Magali Sarfatti, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Berkeley, Calif., 1977), esp. 49–52.Google Scholar

13. August Hellweg, a lawyer in the Prussian Ministry of Justice in Berlin, wrote: “[T]he great work of national unification that has been undertaken has … received its first conclusion in the realm of judicial legislation. A fifty-year wish of the German people has thereby reached its fulfillment, and the inner construction of the new German Empire has received another pillar of support. Because immediately after the unity of language, the unity of legal life forms the basis for the inner unity of the nation.” Hellweg, August, “Geschichtlicher Rückblick über die Entstehung der deutschen Civilprocess-Ordnung,” Archiv für die civilistische Praxis (AcP) 61 (1878): 78–140, 78.Google Scholar Other opinion was also positive. The bar association of the city of Darmstadt resolved: “The German people, especially our Hessian countrymen, have every reason to show the most joyful thanks for these laws, which are the greatest products of German legislation.” “Erklärung der Darmstädter Anwälte,” Juristische Wochenschrift (JW) 6 (1877): 7–8Google Scholar. (Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own).

14. Sellert, Wolfgang, “Die Reichsjustizgesetze von 1877—ein gedenkwürdiges Ereignis?” Juristische Schulung 12 (1977): 781–89,Google Scholar and Landau, Peter, “Die Reichsjustizgesetze von 1879 und die deutsche Rechtseinheit,” in Bundesministerium der Justiz, Vom Reichsjustizamt zum Bundesministerium der Justiz: Festschrift zum 100jährigen Gründungstag des Reichsjustizamtes am 1. Januar 1877 (Cologne, 1977), 161–211.Google Scholar Sellert concludes that the Imperial Justice Laws, although important, made substantial concessions to regional particularisms, and Landau views them as reflective of the compromise-readiness of German liberals. Sellert evaluates the reforms as: “‘[T]estimony to a happy political compromise between a still-powerful authoritarian state and of the claims of civil society to economic and political self-determination.’ Not least, this short history of the Imperial Justice Laws has already shown that, through them, the idea of the Rechtsstaat could be realized to such an extent as never before; … Thus, the Imperial Justice Laws clearly belong among the most important legal events of the past centuries.” Sellert, “Die Reichsjustizgesetze,” 789.

15. Eduard Lasker, one of the leaders of the National Liberal party and the chief architect of the compromise, recounts these attacks by the Progressives in an aide-mémoire that he wrote on Christmas Eve 1876; “Eduard Lasker über die Lage,” reprinted in Heyderhoff, Julius and Wentzcke, Paul, eds., Deutscher Liberalismus im Zeitalter Bismarcks. Eine politische Briefsammlung, 2 vols. (Bonn and Leipzig, 1926; reprint ed. Osnabrück, 1967), vol. 2,Google ScholarIm Neuen Reich 1871–1890. Politische Briefe aus dem Nachlass liberaler Parteiführer, 163–64, 164. See also the account based upon this text in Laufs, Adolf, Eduard Lasker. Ein Leben für den Rechtsstaat (Göttingen, 1984), 99–107, 105.Google Scholar

16. At the German National Assembly in Frankfurt in 1848–49, 491 of the 812 delegates and substitutes who sat during its life, fully 60.5 percent, had studied law at university. Siemann, Wolfram, Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung 1848/49 zwischen demokratischem Liberalismus und konservativer Reform. Die Bedeutung der Juristendominanz in den Verfassungsverhandlungen des Paulskirchenparlaments (Bern and Frankfurt, 1976), 33–34.Google Scholar Four hundred forty-five, almost 55 percent, were Volljuristen, who had completed legal studies and pursued some kind of legal career. Siemann criticizes the figures for Frankfurt given in Demeter, Karl, “Die soziale Schichtung des deutschen Parlaments seit 1848,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 39 (1952): 1–29, 14Google Scholar, and O'Boyle, Lenore, “The Democratic Left in Germany, 1848,” Journal of Modern History 33 (1961): 374–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Eyck, Frank, The Frankfurt Parliament 1848–1849 (London and New York, 1968), 57–102,CrossRefGoogle Scholar especially Table 1 at 95. Among the liberal parties in the Reichstag, the preponderance of lawyers was striking. Thirty-eight of the 120 National Liberal deputies in the first Reichstag (1871) were lawyers or judges; 41 of 152 in the second (1874); 39 of 127 in the third (1877) and 28 of 98 in the fourth (1878). Similarly, 11 of 46 Progressive party deputies in the first Reichstag were lawyers or judges; 14 of 51 in the second; 9 of 39 in the third; and 10 of 29 in the fourth. Kermer, Willy, “Der soziale Aufbau der Parteien des Deutschen Reichstages von 1871–1918” (Dr. jur. diss., University of Cologne, 1934), 13–14, 46–47Google Scholar. These numbers are low, for they do not include law professors and state officials.

17. Bleek, Wilhelm, Von der Kameralausbildung zum Juristenprivileg (Berlin, 1972), 104, 262–85.Google Scholar See also Friedrich, Carl J., “The Continental Tradition of Training Administrators in Law and Jurisprudence,” Journal of Modern History 11 (1939): 133–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18. Gordon, “Critical Legal Histories,” 111.

19. Historians have rarely paid attention to legal training and thinking as an explanation for the political behavior of lawyers. Notable exceptions are Siemann, Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, esp. 255–86, which examines the impact of the Historical School of Law upon the constitutional thinking of the lawyers at Frankfurt in 1848–1849, and Whitman, James Q., The Legacy of Roman Law in the German Romantic Era (Princeton, N.J., 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which analyzes the “ancient constitutionalism” both of the Romanists in the Historical School, led by Savigny, and of the south German liberal reformers.

20. Green, Milton D., Basic Civil Procedure, 2d ed. (Mineola, N. Y., 1979), 5–6.Google Scholar In German, the distinction is framed in the opposition of materielles Recht, material law, the norms that order the law as such, and formelles Recht, formal law, the norms that serve to carry out the material law; the former corresponds to substantive law and the latter to procedural law. See the entry “Recht,” in Creifelds, Carl, Rechtswörterbuch, 8th ed. (Munich, 1986), 897–98, 898.Google Scholar

21. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, “The Origin and Development of the Concept of the Rechtsstaat,” in idem, State, Society and Liberty. Studies in Political Theory and Constitutional Law, trans. Underwood, J. A. (New York and Oxford, 1991), 47–70, 67–68Google Scholar: “However this call for the material Rechtsstaat overlooks the special significance—at the material level—of formal legal guarantees and organized procedure. It is formal guarantees and procedures that shield and protect individual and social liberty by preventing, in the name of absolute established or accepted material meanings or ‘values,’ any discrimination against individuals or social groups. In this they show themselves to be institutions of liberty, having little to do with formalism and even less with positivism.”

22. See the criticism of Max Weber for his overly formal conception of the modern legal order in Habermas, Jürgen, Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols., trans. McCarthy, Thomas (Boston, 1984), vol. 2,Google ScholarReason and the Rationalization of Society, 254–71, esp. 264–65.

23. Luhmann, Niklas, Legitimation durch Verfahren (Neuwied, 1969), 7, and esp. 55–135 on “Gerichtsverfahren.”Google Scholar

24. Sandel, Michael J., “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self,” Political Theory 12 (1984): 81–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. The most accessible brief history of German Rechtsstaat doctrine is Böckenförde, “The Origin and Development of the Concept of the Rechtsstaat.” The concept of the Rechtsstaat is similar to, but distinguishable from, the Anglo-American doctrine of the rule of law; Böckenförde, “Origin and Development,” 48, n. 3. For the importance of this distinction, see also Berman, Harold J., “The Rule of Law and the Law-Based State with Special Reference to the Soviet Union,” in Barry, Donald D., ed., Toward the “Rule of Law” in Russia? Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period (Armonk, N. Y., and London, 1992), 43–60.Google Scholar

26. The standard work on the equivocal nature of the German liberal conception of the Rechtsstaat is still Krieger, Leonard, The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition (Chicago, 1957), especially 252–61;Google Scholar the ideas above are drawn from 252–53. See also Neumann, Franz, The Rule of Law. Political Theory and the Legal System in Modern Society (Leamington Spa, 1986), 179–82, 180Google Scholar. This is a recently published version of Neumann's 1936 dissertation at the London School of Economics.

27. Stahl, Friedrich Julius, Die Philosophie des Rechts, vol. 2, Rechts- und Staatslehre auf der Grundlage christlicher Weltanschauung, 3d ed. (Heidelberg, 1856), 137,Google Scholar quoted in Neumann, The Rule of Law, 180, n. 6. The translation is that of the Neumann volume. The same quotation can be found in Krieger, German Idea of Freedom, 256, n. 103, as well as in two important post–1850 treatises: Bähr, Otto, Der Rechtsstaat. Eine publicistische Skizze (Göttingen and Cassel, 1864), 1,Google Scholar and von Gneist, Rudolf, Der Rechtsstaat und die Verwaltungsgerichte in Deutschland, 2d ed. (Berlin, 1879; reprint ed. Darmstadt, 1967), 33.Google Scholar

28. Krieger, German Idea of Freedom, 459–60, quotation from 460. Others share this view of Gneist's narrow conception; see particularly Hahn, Erich J. C., “Rudolf Gneist and the Prussian Rechtsstaat: 1862–1878,” Journal of Modern History 49 (12. 1977): iii,CrossRefGoogle Scholar (D1361–81), and at greater length, idem, “Rudolf von Gneist (1816–1895). The Political Ideas and Political Activity of a Prussian Liberal in the Bismarck Period” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1971).Google Scholar

29. The most comprehensive work on the history of the movement toward legal unification in Germany is Getz, Heinrich, Die deutsche Rechtseinheit im 19. Jahrhundert als rechtspolitisches Problem (Bonn, 1966).Google Scholar For the history of court organization, see Kern, Eduard, Geschichte des Gerichtsverfassungsrechts (Munich and Berlin, 1954).Google Scholar Fundamentally important research and analysis with regard to all of the Imperial Justice Laws has been undertaken by Werner Schubert of the University of Kiel. Among other source collections, he has edited two particularly useful volumes: Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung (1869–1977). Entstehung und Quellen, Sonderheft 16 zu Ius Commune (Frankfurt, 1981),Google Scholar and Entstehung und Quellen der Rechtsanwaltsordnung von 1878, Sonderheft 22 zu Ius Commune (Frankfurt, 1985).Google Scholar Schubert's work has also included the sources from the commissions to draft the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch and numerous articles concerning legal unification and other statutory reforms. Particularly important to Schubert's analysis is the unpublished manuscript notebook of Franz Förster, “Zur Geschichte des Entwurfs eines Deutschen Gerichtsverfassungsgesetzes,” written in December 1877. Förster was a privy counsellor in the Prussian Ministry of Justice, of generally liberal leanings, who, in the main, prepared the initial draft of the constitution of the courts. Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 62, n. 15. Schubert gained access to the manuscript through Förster's descendants; ibid., 10, n. 19. Förster's notebook may now be found in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, I HA Rep. 84a, no. 3105, “Entwurf eines Justiz-Verfassungs-Gesetzes für den Norddeutschen Bund 1874–1910,” inserted but not bound at the front of the folder. The title page of the notebook bears the couplet: “Thank God every morning that you do not have to look after the German Empire!”

30. The importance of the influence of the Code Napoléon on the right bank of the Rhine, including its procedural aspects, even in states in which the Code was not fully introduced, is a central theme of Fehrenbach, Elisabeth, Traditionale Gesellschaft und revolutionäres Recht. Die Einführung des Code Napoléon in den Rheinbundstaaten, 3d ed. (Göttingen, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. According to Siemann, Die Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, 72–77, Savigny viewed the creation of the institutional preconditions for the realization of the law as one of the five legitimate functions of state power with regard to the law. For a short sketch of the debate between Savigny and Thibaut over legal codification and the evolution of the historical legal school, see John, Politics and the Law, 15–41, and the older Kantorowicz, Hermann, “Savigny and the Historical School of Law,” The Law Quarterly Review 53 (1937): 326–43.Google Scholar

32. Mittermaier, Carl Joseph Anton, “Ueber die Bestimmungen einer zweckmässigen Gerichtsverfassung und Processordnung,” AcP 14 (1831): 398–420, 398, 399–400;Google Scholar and idem, “Die künftige Stellung des Advokatenstandes,” AcP 15 (1832): 138–50, 138.Google Scholar See also the speech by Heinrich von Gagern in the Hessian Landtag, 3 October 1833, in Wentzcke, Paul and Klötzer, Wolfgang, eds., Deutscher Liberalismus im Vormärz. Heinrich von Gagern Briefe und Reden 1815–1848 (Göttingen, 1959), 121–28.Google Scholar

33. Friedrich List, “Advokat,” in von Rotteck, Carl and Welcker, Carl, eds., Staats-Lexikon oder Encyklopädie der Staatswissenschaften, 15 vols. (Altona, 1834–1843), 1: 363–77, 366.Google Scholar

34. The most accessible survey of the history of civil procedure in Germany is found in Engelmann, Arthur, et al. , A History of Continental Civil Procedure, trans. and ed. Millar, Robert Wyness (Boston, 1927).Google Scholar The demand for publicity of proceedings was an integral part of the bourgeois project of constructing a political “public sphere” for the expression of “public opinion” on matters of political import. Habermas, Jürgen, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Darmstadt and Neuwied, 1962), 101–11, esp. 105–6.Google Scholar

35. The ideological centrality of trial by jury in creating a sense of solidarity among the Rhenish Bürgertum is the central theme of a very important essay by Blasius, Dirk, “Der Kampf um die Geschworenengerichte im Vormärz,” in Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, ed., Sozialgeschichte Heute. Festschrift für Hans Rosenberg zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen, 1974), 148–61, esp. 156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Landau, Peter, “Schwurgerichte und Schöffengerichte in Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert bis 1870,” in Schioppa, Antonio Padoa, ed., The Trial Jury in England, France, Germany 1700–1900 (Berlin, 1987), 241–304.Google Scholar

36. Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 25, 111. The idea of a Verfassungsersatz is also explored in Kern, Geschichte des Gerichtsverfassungsrechts, 73, citing Bähr, Der Rechtsstaat, who, under the harsh conditions for liberalism in Electoral Hesse, abandoned hope in constitutional government as protector of the rights of the citizen, for government ministers and constitutions can be changed. The law, Bähr argued, was “the stable element of the life of the state,” and when enforced by independent judges, amounted to a more effective check upon the personal rule of the sovereign than a constitution or ministers. “But the minister is an individual, moreover one who, because he can be dismissed, can offer no guarantee of the principles that he represents. In today's state, the whole interpretation of public law therefore rests with one person. If the ruler of a state changes his minister today, tomorrow the whole public law may assume a completely different physiognomy. This phenomenon truly casts scorn upon the essence of the law, if we truly consider it to be the stable element of the life of the state.” Bähr, Der Rechtsstaat, 70.

37. The literature on the question of freie Advokatur is surprisingly large. Most important is the Streitschrift from 1867, von Gneist, Rudolf, Freie Advocatur. Die erste Forderung aller Justizreform in Preussen (Berlin, 1867);Google Scholar important archival background materials are reproduced in Schubert, Entstehung und Quellen der Rechtsanwaltsordnung. See also Weissler, Adolf, Geschichte der Rechtsanwaltschaft (Leipzig, 1905);Google ScholarHuffman, Helga, Kampf um freie Advokatur (Essen, 1967);Google Scholar and Ledford, Kenneth F., “A Social and Institutional History of the German Bar in Private Practice, 1878–1930,” (Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1988), esp. chapters 2 and 7.Google Scholar

38. Blasius, Dirk, “Bürgerliches Recht und bürgerliche Identität. Zu einem Problemzusammenhang in der deutschen Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Berding, Helmut, et al. , eds., Vom Staat des Ancien Regime zum modernen Parteienstaat. Festschrift für Theodor Schieder (Munich, 1978), 213–24, 219Google Scholar, emphasizes the shift from a concentration upon constitutional reform to legal reform.

39. Anderson, Margaret Lavinia, Windthorst: A Political Biography (Oxford, 1981), 55, 67–69.Google Scholar

40. Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 31–35. The best commentary on the Hanoverian reforms is Leonhardt, Gerhard Adolph Wilhelm, Die bürgerliche Processordnung und deren Nebengesetze, 2d ed. (Hanover, 1853).Google Scholar See also the discussion in Ledford, “A Social and Institutional History of the German Bar,” 169–74.

41. John, Politics and the Law, 42–72, makes this point explicitly.

42. The concept of the Holy Roman Empire as “incubator” of the particular rights of smaller German states, as the means used by the smaller states to protect themselves from the ambitions of Prussia and Austria, is drawn from Walker, Mack, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, 1648–1871 (Ithaca, N. Y., 1971).Google Scholar

43. Getz, Die deutsche Rechtseinheit, 136–40.

44. John, Politics and the Law, 33–37; see also, Laufke, Franz, “Der deutsche Bund und die Zivilgesetzgebung,” in Mikat, Paul, ed., Festschrift der Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg zum 75. Geburtstag von Hermann Nottarp (Karlsruhe, 1961), 1–57.Google ScholarKraehe, Enno E., “Practical Politics in the German Confederation: Bismarck and the Commercial Code,” Journal of Modern History 25 (1953): 13–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, details Bismarck's intricate maneuverings so as to rescue Prussia from the charge of thwarting the code but also to prevent Austria from reaping any benefit from its passage.

45. By 1869, not only had all German states with the exception of Luxemburg and Limburg adopted the commercial code, but it had also become the law of the North German Confederation. Getz, Die deutsche Rechtseinheit, 140; Laufke, “Der deutsche Bund,” 8–11.

46. von Bismarck, Otto, Die gesammelten Werke, 15 vols. (Berlin, 1924–1935), vol. 11,Google ScholarReden: 1869 bis 1878, ed. Wilhelm Schüssler (1929), speech to the Reichstag on 23 May 1870, 117–20, 119. Bismarck's words were quoted during the debate in the Reichstag on the third reading of the GVG, by Herz, Carl, a member of the Progressive party; Hahn, Carl, ed., Die gesammten Materialien zu den Reichs-Justizgesetzen, 8 vols. in 11 (Berlin, 1881–1898; reprint ed. Aalen, , 1983),Google Scholar Die gesammten Materialien zu dem Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz, 2:1583–85 (hereafter cited “Hahn, Materialien GVG”). For the story of the adoption of the Strafgesetzbuch, see Schubert, Werner, “Der Ausbau der Rechtseinheit unter dem Norddeutschen Bund—Zur Entstehung des Strafgesetzbuchs von 1870 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Strafensystems,” in Buschmann, Arno, et al. , eds., Festschrift für Rudolf Gmür zum 70. Geburtstag 28. Juli 1983 (Bielefeld, 1983), 149–89.Google Scholar Pflanze argues that “Bismarck had long believed that unity in law and justice would contribute greatly to the consolidation of the Reich, a conviction shared by most liberals.” Bismarck 2:347Google Scholar. Förster in late 1873 was strongly of the opinion that Bismarck was committed to the passage of some sort of imperial justice reform, regardless of its merit, for political reasons. Förster, “Zur Geschichte,” 79–80.

47. Schubert, “Der Ausbau der Rechtseinheit,” 187.

48. Schmitt, Hans A., “From Sovereign States to Prussian Provinces,” Journal of Modern History 57 (1985): 24–56, 41–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also John, Michael, “Liberalism and Society in Germany, 1850–1880: The Case of Hanover,” English Historical Review 102 (1987): 579–98, especially 595–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an account of Bismarck's moderate strategy favoring “the preservation of all local institutions that did not threaten Prussian interest,” see Stehlin, Stewart A., Bismarck and the Guelph Problem 1866–1890: A Study in Particularist Opposition to National Unity (The Hague, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. ch. 7, “Bismarck and the New Province,” 158–93.

49. Gunkel, Karl, 200 Jahre Rechtsleben in Hannover. Festschrift zur Erinnerung an die Gründung des Kurhannoverschen Oberappellationsgerichts in Celle am 14.10.1711 (Hanover, 1911);Google Scholar see also Roscher, Theodor, “Gerichtsverfassung und Anwaltschaft im einstmaligen Kurstaat und Königreich Hannover,” in Anwaltverein, Deutscher, ed., Festschrift zum siebzehnten Deutschen Anwaltstage. Hannover 1905 (Hanover, 1905), 5–116.Google Scholar

50. Surprisingly, no biography of Leonhardt exists, despite his central importance to the history of national integration and legal unification. The information in this paper is drawn from the entries in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 18:301–7 (Leipzig, 1883)Google Scholar and Neue Deutsche Biographie, 4:253–54 (Berlin, 1985),Google Scholar as well as Stintzing, Rudolf and Landsberg, Ernst, Geschichte der Deutschen Rechtswissenschaft, 3 vols. (Munich and Berlin, 1910), vol. 3, part 1, 700–701, vol. 3, part 2, 303–4, notes 28–32.Google Scholar

51. Guelph loyalists were later disappointed with Leonhardt and held it against him that he cosigned the Prussian law sequestering the assets of the Hanoverian royal family.

52. Pflanze consistently includes Leonhardt as part of the “liberal fraction” of the Prussian cabinet; Bismarck 1:424; 2:201, 215, 372.Google Scholar

53. Conrad, Hermann, “Der deutsche Juristentag 1860–1960,” in von Caemmerer, Ernst, et al. , eds., Hundert Jahre Deutsches Rechtsleben. Festschrift zum hundertjährigen Bestehen des deutschen Juristentages 1860–1960 (Karlsruhe, 1960), 1:1–36, 2–4;Google ScholarOlshausen, Theodor, Der deutsche Juristentag. Sein Werden und Wirken (Berlin, 1910), 19–22, 24.Google Scholar For the early organizational efforts of lawyers in private practice, see Weissler, Geschichte der Rechtsanwaltschaft, 502ff.

54. Weissler, Geschichte der Rechtsanwaltschaft, 555–61; Ostler, Fritz, Die deutschen Rechtsanwälte 1871–1971, 2d ed. (Essen, 1982), 86–87.Google Scholar For an account in English, see Ledford, “A Social and Institutional History of the German Bar,” 119–35.

55. Gneist, Freie Advocatur, 49.

56. Art. 4, par. 13, reproduced in Huber, Ernst Rudolf, ed., Dokumente zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte, 3d ed., 3 vols. (Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, Mainz, 1961–1966), 2:272–85, 273.Google Scholar The same constitutional provision was carried over unchanged into the Constitution of the German Empire in 1871; ibid., 384–402, 387. John recounts the struggle to amend this provision, beginning in 1867, to permit federal legislation in the entire realm of substantive civil law; also included in the Lasker-Miquel amendments, until they dropped it in order to achieve passage of the clause regarding substantive civil law, was the phrase “including the organization of the courts.” They made this compromise in May of 1872 in order to allay the particularist-federalist fears of the Zentrum and to gain Windthorst's support. John, Politics and the Law, 42–72, especially 54–55; see also Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 55–58. Once the reference to court organization disappeared, the constitutional amendment was adopted, leaving the Constitution still silent on the matter of federal jurisdiction to legislate comprehensively in the realm of court organization. Despite claims by Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, and Braunschweig that federal legislation on court organization was tantamount to a loss of justice-sovereignty by the states, the prevailing view was that comprehensive court organizational reform was an ancillary function of the constitutional power granted to the federal government to legislate reforms in trial procedure. See “Begründung des Entwurfs eines Gerichtsverfassungsgesetzes und des Einführungs-Gesetzes,” in Hahn, Materialien GVG, 24–187, 24.

57. “Votum des Justizministers Leonhardt vom 10.3.1869,” reprinted in Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 269–71, 269–70, and “Verhandlungen des Preussischen Staatsministeriums vom 14.3.1869,” ibid., 273–74.

58. Letter from Bismarck to Leonhardt, 21 December. 1869, reprinted in ibid., 322. The votes in opposition to drafting a separate constitution of the courts came from Saxony, Hessen, Mecklenburg, and Hamburg; protocol of the Bundesrat session of 21 Februray 1870, ibid., 331–32, and report of Kirchenpauer, delegate from Hamburg, of the same date, ibid., 332–33.

59. The text of the draft is reprinted in ibid., 338–80.

60. The texts of these various drafts are reprinted in ibid., 385–406.

61. Protocol of the “II. Conferenz zur Besprechung der Reichsgerichtsverfassung,” 13 December 1872, in ibid., 408–9, 408; and “Votum des Justizministers Leonhardt vom 9.1.1874 für das Staatsministerium,” ibid., 605–12, 608.

62. See the explication of the various laws throughout Germany in the Begründung to the draft of the GVG in Hahn, Materialien GVG, 31–38.

63. Landau, “Schwurgerichte und Schöffengerichte,” 290–301, discusses the Hanoverian innovation and pays special attention to reforms in Saxony and Württemberg.

64. “Verhandlungen des preussischen Staatsministeriums über die Besetzung der Strafgerichte (20.10.1871),” in Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 336–38, 338.

65. “Conferenz zur Besprechung der Reichsgerichtsverfassung vom 12.12.1872,” ibid., 406–08, 407; “Berathung des Staatsministeriums am 4.3.1874 (Schwurgerichte),” ibid., 612–13.

66. Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, summarizes the convoluted debate and outcome at length, 65–86.

67. “Votum des Justizministers Leonhardt vom 9.1.1874 für das Staatsministerium,” reprinted in ibid., 605–12, 608.

68. The changes that had been made in his reforms so disheartened Leonhardt that he appeared to lose his enthusiasm for the laws; ibid., 85–86. Förster was so disillusioned with Leonhardt's concessions to the Bundesrat, and also so disappointed with his career prospects, that he left the Justice Ministry for the Ministry of Education (Kultusministerium) in 1874; ibid., 81–82, and Förster, “Zur Geschichte.”

69. Hahn, Materialien GVG, 188–90, 189.

70. Ibid., 197–211.

71. Ibid., 227.

72. Weissler, Geschichte der Rechtsanwaltschaft, 579; Schubert, Entstehung und Quellen, 25–26. The German Lawyers' Convention in Würzburg in 1874 resolved “that there is an imperative need for the relations of the legal profession to be regulated by a common German lawyers' statute.”

73. Hahn, Materialien GVG, 271–73. The Commission consisted of twelve National Liberals: Johannes Miquel (lawyer-politician), Friedrich Ludwig Gaupp (judge), Isaac Wolffson (lawyer), Joseph Völk (lawyer), Karl Grimm (judge), Rudolf von Gneist (law professor), Otto Bähr (judge), Henning von Puttkamer (judge), Heinrich von Marquardsen (law professor), Eduard Lasker (lawyer), Hermann Heinrich Becker (judge), and Johannes Struckman (judge); eight members of the Zentrum: Max Theodor Mayer (judge), Thomas von Hauck (prosecutor), Peter Franz Reichensperger (judge), Joseph Bernards (judge), Friedrich Christoph von Forcade (judge), Ernst Philipp Lieber (lawyer), Hugo Pfafferott (judge), and Adolf Kraetzer (judge); four Progressives: Arthur Eysold (lawyer), Moritz Klotz (judge), Carl Herz (judge), and August Friedrich Karl Zinn, a medical doctor and the only non-lawyer on the panel; two Conservatives, Wilhelm von Schöning (state official) and Gustav Wilhelm von Jagow (state official); and two Free Conservatives, Friedrich von Schwarze (prosecutor) and Karl Gustav Thilo (judge); ibid., 274–76; Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 89, n. 17; Schwarz, Max, MdR. Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage (Hanover, 1965).Google Scholar

74. Hahn, Materialien GVG, 371–81.

75. Ibid., 509–56.

76. Ibid., 589–91.

77. “Protokoll der Sitzung des Justizausschusses des Bundesrates 3.4.1876 und 4.4.1876,” Schubert, Die deutsche Gerichtsverfassung, 831–42.

78. “Protokoll der Sitzung des Staatsministeriums vom 2.10.1867”, reproduced in ibid., 885–89, 886, and “Protokoll der Sitzung des Staatsministeriums vom 4.12.1876,” ibid., 924–29, 924–26.

79. “Dritte Berathung im Plenum des Reichstags. 33. Sitzung, 18. Dez. 1876,” Hahn, Materialien GVG, 1501.

80. Ibid., 1502.

81. Ibid., 1535–36, 1539.

82. Ibid., 1518; 1525. Lasker was profoundly hurt by the harsh criticism directed against him by the Progressives; see Harris, James F., “Eduard Lasker and Compromise Liberalism,” Journal of Modern History 42 (1970); 342–60, 355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83. “Dritte Berathung im Plenum des Reichstags. 33. Sitzung, 18. Dez. 1876,” Hahn, Materialien GVG, 1498.

84. Hänle, S., “Zum Neujahr 1877,” JW 6 (1877): 1–2, 1 01 1877.Google Scholar

85. Lasker put the issue as follows: “It is my opinion that this house must divide itself into two parts: those who, for objective reasons, agree with Herr Delegate Windthorst that it is better not to agree on this lawyers' statute and to attempt to agree in some other way next year immediately before the entry into effect of the justice laws, must vote against this motion; the other half of this house, on the contrary, must see the way clear to accept this motion insofar as they consider the acceptance of the lawyers' statute at the present time to be a positive completion of the justice laws.” “Dritte Berathung des Entwurfs der Rechtsanwaltsordnung. 53. Sitzung,” in Siegel, Max, ed., Die gesammten Materialien zu der Rechtsanwaltsordnung vom 1. Juli 1878 (Leipzig, 1883), 617–47, 620.Google Scholar

86. Fliess, Edith, “Der Kampf um den numerus clausus in der Rechtsanwaltschaft” (Juris Doktor diss., University of Freiburg i. B., 1933), 24–25,Google Scholar argued that substantial limitations on freie Advokatur remained in the RAO. Müller, Lothar, “Die Freiheit der Advokatur. Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung in Deutschland während der Neuzeit und ihre rechtliche Bedeutung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (Juris Doktor diss., University of Würzburg, 1972), 33–39Google Scholar catalogues the limitations upon lawyers' freedoms, arguing that freedom from the state was almost complete, whereas freedom from the profession (Stand) remained very limited. Lawyers accepted their remaining dependence upon the state as part of the bargain that created a nationally unified profession from a congeries of particularistic, functionally divided (into Advokatur and Prokuratur) state bars. Taken as a whole, the RAO largely realized the freedom of the practicing bar. For the quotation from Windthorst, see “Erste Berathung des Entwurfs einer Rechtsanwaltsordnung. 3. Sitzung,” in Siegel, Materialien RAO, 364–96, 382.

87. Again, opposition was led by Windthorst and the Zentrum who, while favoring freie Advokatur and insisting upon the least possible state interference in the legal profession (opposing localization, etc.), also argued in favor of preserving particularist discretion for the federal states. Schubert, Entstehung und Quellen, 39, 203, 205; Ledford, “A Social and Institutional History of the German Bar,” 85–91.

88. Rosendahl, Erich, Geschichte Niedersachsens im Spiegel der Reichsgeschichte bis zur Gegenwart (Hanover, 1927), 903,Google Scholar recounts the description by Georg von Vincke: “The three cleverest people in parliament now are three annexed Hanoverians. The first is Bennigsen; he is very clever. The second, Miquel, is even cleverer. But the third is Windthorst. He is even cleverer than the other two put together!” Anderson, Windthorst, 108, also cites this anecdote and traces its origin in n. 38.

89. Leonhardt, Adolf, Betrachtungen über die hannoversche Justizverwaltung mit Rücksicht auf die Vereinigung des Königsreichs Hannover mit der Preussischen Monarchie (Hanover, 1866), 5.Google Scholar

90. When the Reichstag finally adopted the GVG, ZPO, and StPO, Bismarck was so pleased with the outcome that he recommended to the Kaiser that he grant Leonhardt a decoration, thinking it “very useful politically, completely aside from the fact that he [Leonhardt] had earned it by his faithful and strenuous labor.” The Kaiser awarded Leonhardt the Grand Cross with oak leaf cluster that same day; Bismarck, Die gesammelten Werke, vol. 6c, ed.Google ScholarFrauendienst, Werner, Politische Schriften 1869 bis 1871 (1929), “Immediatbericht,” 76.Google Scholar

91. Bennigsen defended himself in a speech to the Reichstag on 21 December. 1876, reprinted in Oncken, Hermann, Rudolf von Bennigsen. Ein deutscher liberaler Politiker, vol. 2 (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1910), 293–95.Google Scholar

92. Lasker, “Eduard Lasker über die Lage,” 163–64.

93. See Landau, “Schwurgerichte und Schöffengerichte,” 301–3. Landau attributes the subsequent replacement of Schwurgerichte by Schöffengerichte to the increasing trust, by the middle class, of judges as they came to be drawn more from the middle class and as they, therefore, began truly to reflect the values of a bürgerliche society; ibid., 303–4.

94. See Ledford, Kenneth F., “Conflict within the Legal Profession,” in Cocks, Geoffrey and Jarausch, Konrad H., eds., The German Professions 1800–1950 (Oxford and New York, 1990), 252–69.Google Scholar

95. Blasius, “Bürgerliches Recht,” 216.

96. Dicey, A. V., Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 3d ed. (London, 1889), 184–89, quotation from 187.Google Scholar Judith Shklar has recently pointed out that procedure in criminal cases was what Montesquieu's Rule of Law was all about, and that Dicey hollowed the inquiry out even further, to look only at the forms of juridical rigor rather than its structure or purposes; Shklar, Judith, “Political Theory and the Rule of Law,” in Hutchinson, Allan C. and Monahan, Patrick, eds., The Rule of Law. Ideal or Ideology (Toronto, 1987), 1–16, 5, 6.Google Scholar

97. See especially the extended critique of Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, 1971),Google Scholar in Sandel, Michael J., Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge, 1984)Google Scholar, especially on the priority of procedural justice to the rightness of any outcome, 113–22.

98. Blasius, “Bürgerliches Recht,” 220.