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Salus publica suprema lex: Prussian Businessmen in the New Era and Constitutional Conflict
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
Extract
On 26 October 1858 I attended the swearing in of the country's leader, just as I did on 6 February 1850. In 1850, I attended as a deputy of the lower house and rebellious councillor third class; now I took part as a loyal councillor first class and even a possible ministerial candidate. This time the act had something uncommonly captivating. The prince spoke plainly but with a dignified voice and conveyed to the world the feeling that such an oath was truly not meaningless, that the Constitution had finally attained its true confirmation, and that we further stand on firm ground—as if the confusions of 1848 had never disturbed the path of legal development started in 1847.
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References
1. Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (hereafter HAStK), rep. 1023, L488a.
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14. H. F. L. Augustin, Das Preussische Handels-Ministerium in seinem Verhältnisse zu den Privat-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaften (Potsdam, 1859); and idem, Preussische Finanzfragen (Potsdam, 1859). Augustin's attack on the trade ministry appeared in two newspapers in 1859: Preussische Zeitung, nos. 174, 176,190, 192,234, and 236; and the BBZ, nos. 218, 220, 224. The latter gave glowing reviews of Augustin's essays: 25 March 1859, no. 142, 591; and 16 April 1859, no. 180, 745. The essays received a long reply from Heydt, which was published in the Preussische Zeitung in 1859, and can be found in GStA Merseburg, 93E, no. 562, n.p.
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19. See, for example, the BBZ 7 November 1858, no. 562, p. 2327; 9 November 1858, no. 566, p. 2343; 10 November 1858, no. 568, p. 2351; 13 November 1858, no. 573, p. 2371; 1 Dec. 1858, no. 606, pp. 2507–8; 21 Dec. 1858, no. 643, p. 2663. See also the correspondence between Ludolf and Otto Camphausen, 3 and 5 August 1858, HAStK, rep. 1023, L481, L482.Google Scholar
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32. The fund was enacted in 1842, but because of the agricultural and financial crises of mid-1840s, as well as the Revolution of 1848, the law's component involving a tax was never enforced.
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37. “Der Herr Handelsminister v. d. Heydt und der Bergbau,” Zeitung für das deutsche Bergwerks- und Hūttenwesen (Wochen Beilage der Berliner Börsen-Zeitung), 18 November 1858.
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46. Its passage greatly affected the army reform bill and the preliminary phase of the constitutional conflict. Exceptions to the scholarly neglect of this issue are Anderson, E. N., The Social and Political Conflict in Prussia, 1858–64 (Lincoln, 1954), 110–18;Google Scholar and especially Kohut, Thomas, “The Prussian Land Tax Reform of 1861,” Master's Thesis, University of Minnesota, 1975.Google Scholar
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52. The importance of the property tax reform in the summer of 1858 is noteworthy, because it is before the battle of Solferino, the Prussian mobilization of 1859, and the concrete military reform plants that called for greater revenues. E. N. Anderson placed the military reform as the primary reason for William's support, which does not heed the longer history of the tax and the royal support for it, which predates the military-bill conflict. Anderson, , Social and Political Conflict, 9–10.Google Scholar
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88. The Upper Silesian company received permission from the trade ministry to cancel construction of a potentially unprofitable line on the right bank of the Oder and further received the hitherto forbidden right to run its own coalmining operation. Heydt to Prince William, 7 November 1859, Merseburg, GStA, rep.2.2.1., no. 29574, pp. 273–75; decree of Prince William, 14 November 1859,Google ScholarMerseburg, GStA, Rep. 2.2.1., no. 29573, p. 19; Position paper of Heydt, 28 January 1860,Google ScholarMerseburg, GStA, Rep. 90a K III 3, no. 14, vol. 1, p. 306. The Cologne-Minden railroad also received advantageous concessions to fuse its operations in a central station with the Rhenish Railway and new stipulations for the construction of its lines to Giessen and Arnheim.Google Scholar
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90. Ibid., 27 February 1860 and 12 March 1860.
91. Ibid., 15 March 1860.
92. See, for example, NZ, 4 and 13 February 1862; 4 April 1862.Google Scholar
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137. Quoted in Engelberg, Bismarck, 562.
138. Quoted in Zunkel, Unternehmer, 195.
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