Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

154 • The Making of a German Constitutionthe BGBS’s marital property provisions and who made up the majority of Saxony’sindustrial workers.Impact of Unification on Constitutional TransformationThe legal reformations that were already taking place at the state level informed thedevelopment of the national legal system after German unification. This is importantbecause historians have argued that Otto von Bismarck redirected nationalist andliberal momentum by securing unification under the Prussian flag, and the Reich Constitutionof 1871 has long been criticized for the conspicuous absence of basic rightsprovisions. It is useful, however, to distinguish between geographical unification andstructural unification, which was still a pressing question that demanded an answer.Shortly after the founding of the North German Confederation in 1866, a politicalcartoon under the title ‘Something is rotten in the State, etc’ appeared. The cartoondepicts the front and back sides of a peacock’s feathers. On the front, it shows the variousstates in the North German Confederation fanned on the peacock’s tail. On theback side, however, it shows an array of pressing legal questions. The caption reads: ‘Itlooks magnificent from the front, but when you get to the bottom of it—Oh dear!’ 163Rather that focusing on Prussianization, in fact, scholars should give muchgreater consideration to the fact that Prussia not only annexed states where constitutionaltransformation was making considerable inroads, but populations of veteranlegal liberals and constitutional transformationists. This is particularly importantwith regard to Hanover. Paradoxically, given the complicated structural disunity thatresulted from unification, liberal legislation was the only tool available for such amonumental task as structurally unifying the new Reich, and, this reality, as Frensdorffwrote, was not lost on Gottlieb Planck. 164 More biographical information aboutGottlieb Planck is offered in Chapter 7, but, for now, it will suffice to emphasize thehe emerged as one of the most active Hanover liberals of the mid century.The Hanover Prozeßordnung of 1850 was made possible by the Verfassungsgesetzof 1848, which restored the key provisions of the Staatsgrundgesetze of 1833.Ernst August, however, hastily gave back the constitution to save his own neck duringthe upheaval of 1848, and, as soon as the danger cleared, he was again preparedto renege, this time, on the 1848 Verfassungsgesetz. However much the Prozeßordnungwas celebrated in Central Europe and it represented advance, its introductionwas followed the same year by the king’s dismissal of the liberal ministry. A bitterconstitutional struggle erupted just before his death in November of 1851. The newKing, George V, shared his father’s reactionary political views and, from the start ofhis reign, he set out to kill the Verfassungsgesetz. While he faced strident resistancefrom the second chamber, he ultimately won his appeal to the German Confederationin the Bundesbeschlüsse of 12 and 19 April 1855, which declared the Verfassungsgesetzof 1848 invalid. George V then restored the hated Landesverfassungsgesetze of