Note (Back) — Chapter IX

As has been pointed out, the close of the Napoleonic period found Germany entirely devoid of political unity, in both name and fact. By the governments which were chiefly influential in the reconstruction of Europe in 1814-1815, it was deemed expedient that there be re-established some degree of German unity, though on the part of most of them, both German and non-German, there was no desire that there be called into existence a united German nation of substantial independence and power. In the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, promulgated under date of June 9, 1815, there was included the draft of a constitution, prepared by a committee of the Congress under the presidency of Count Metternich, in which was laid down the fundamental law of an entirely new German union. Within Germany proper there were recognized to be, when the Congress had completed its work of readjustment, thirty-eight states, of widely varying size, importance, and condition. Under authorization of the Congress, these states were now organized, not into an empire with a common sovereign, but into a Bund, or Confederation, whose sole central organ was a Bundestag, or Diet, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main and composed of delegates commissioned by the sovereigns of the affiliated states and serving under their immediate and absolute direction. Save only in respect to certain matters pertaining to foreign relations and war, each of the thirty-eight states retained its autonomy unimpaired.[277]