Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

192 • The Making of a German Constitutionsociety. Their legal education came after the Germanists had established themselvesin universities, and it shaped the legislation they enacted. It was they who cameinto possession of Grimm’s misplaced keys and, as they enacted legislation, unlikethe earlier generation, they could look to German historical sources to justify theirdemands for liberal political, social and economic arrangements. Legal training alsomeant that this generation was more calculating and methodical in their approach toconstitutional transformation. In the fateful days of March 1848, Planck wrote to hisparents: ‘Once again we are in a time where history hastens forward on the double,when what was wished for and striven after for decades is attained in a few days oreven hours.’ 12 ‘Often earlier I had wished to have lived during the time of the firstFrench Revolution’, he continued ‘so that I could have seen and taken part in theexperience of the magnificent drama of a people wakening to the consciousness oftheir Rights and the Freedom.’ 13 While the ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’ of the FrenchRepublic captured his soul and political imagination, he wished ‘it could be repeated ...without the excess and terrorism that contaminated the first Revolution and laid towaste its best fruits’. 14 ‘The best hope for the German people’, he concluded, was toundermine the Confederation from within.’ 15These sentiments were expressed by Planck’s other liberal contemporaries. ‘Themere expansion of borders was not the deutsche aim of the wars’, Eduard Laskerwrote to Bismarck in August of 1870, ‘and the nation will not be satisfied with this asits prize’ as he suggested the need to create structural unification after the war. 16 Las ker’sletter clarified that liberals would not be sidetracked from their demands for equalcivil rights. ‘Famous victories and dazzling external successes’, as Rudolf Gneist alsomade clear in 1871, ‘will not turn us away from the unchanging demands for a securelegal system and for political participation in the reconstruction of the law.’ 17Lasker’s life was a struggle up from the margins of Prussian society. Born EisakLasker into a Jewish family of decidedly humble origins in Posen, Lasker refusedto convert and, thus, his liberalism was also driven by his own exclusion from thePrussian civil service because of his faith. In 1848, Lasker was a member of theAcademic Legion, which joined Robert Blum’s battle in the streets of Vienna. Whenthe revolution was put down in 1849, he had no real option but to lead a life of exilein England. It was here that he developed an expertise in English law and became anadherent of John Stuart Mill’s writings as well as Gladstone’s reforms. 18 His place asone of the most important National Liberal figures of his time was also a testament tothe significant progress of religious tolerance and diversity in German society by thelate nineteenth century. The gaps in the constitution, which Lasker incidentally had ahand in drafting, left significant room for later political transformation, and the LexMiquel-Lasker was the most significant amendment to that constitution and extendedthe competency of the Reich to the whole range of civil law.Like so many of his liberal contemporaries, Planck packed off for Frankfurt inthe summer of 1849. As a result of his activities, he lost his court clerk position inthe city of Hanover and received the first of several disciplinary transfers. Exiled to