Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

136 • The Making of a German Constitutioncitizen’. 23 Soon after, however, he pointed out that he took up the contemporary legalproblems ‘in the name of merchants and the great interests of industry’. 24 The Germanpeople had given their heart’s blood for the throne and the Fatherland, and herhetorically asked ‘what’s to come of Germany now and their hopes for a Germancitizen’s law (Bürgerrecht)’. 25After a brief discussion of how legal particularism inhibited economic growth, heturned to ‘the civil laws on the position of married women and marital property relations’.26 It was impossible to get a handle on the situation, because of the ‘unendingdifferences of the law in the various parts of Germany’. 27 He cited a case involving anAustrian woman who owned property in Rhenish Bavaria, emphasizing the fact thatshe was Austrian. Apparently, the woman, an independent property owner, traveledto the region with the intent of selling her property, all without the authorization ofher husband. There was some question as to whether her ‘rights’ should be construedunder Austrian law, where she could freely dispose of her own property, or underthe customary law of Rhenish Bavaria. 28 This confusion, Mittermaier complained,hindered trade because there were no provisions as to whether or not a wife could independentlydispose of her property. In response, he did not call for legal clarity, buturged that some other understanding had to be reached on the position women, andhe demanded the reinstitution of ‘Deutsches Mundium’, namely, sex guardianship. 29For the sake of ‘peace in the family’, as well as the economic life, he called for draftlegislation on the position of married women and marital property. 30During the 1847 conference, the important decision was made to pursue the introductionof a unified code. It was here that constitutional transformation began inpractice. Jaup made the first suggestion, and, as Karl Hegel later wrote, it was a callthat evoked a ‘storm of enthusiasm’. 31 Jaup opened his speech saying: ‘Our beautifulGermany has so much that uplifts the heart and spirit and we can be proud to possessthis Fatherland.’ 32 He went on, however, to lament the absence of a unified civil code.‘Ein deutsch-nationales Heimathsrecht,’ as he referred to it, would end confessionaldivisions in Germany and antagonism between German states and, therefore, createa better climate for business, and ‘especially, a common German civil law wouldfinally embody a powerful promotion of the national consciousness’. 33 FollowingJaup’s remarks, Mittermaier ‘demanded this German civil code in the name of industry’.34 The revolutionary implications were clear in Anton Christ’s words that openthis chapter. Again, he urged before the entire conference body: ‘We in Germany area collection of states that can be made into a whole from all the single parts, so thatwe can become, as they say in North America: e pluribus unum.’ 35The second generation of German liberals remained committed to constitutionaltransformation. In a letter to Friedrich Dahlmann in 1847, Georg Gervinus acknowledgedthat it was his generation’s role to carry the programme forward. It would betheir lot to maintain progress, Gervinus wrote, and ‘to achieve the advantages ofpolitical revision without violent movements, wisely to learn from the sufferings anderrors of foreign countries and gradually, following the path of legalism and through