1 Grand Ducal and Ducal Houses of Saxony, Mecklemburg-Schwerin and Strelitz, The free towns of Lubeck, Frankfort, Bre men and Hamburg Total 17. Austria presides in the diet, but each member has a right to propose any measure for deliberation. The diet is formed into what is called a General Assembly (Plenum) for the decision of certain specific questions. The votes in pleno are distributed as follows: Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, Baden, Electoral Hesse, Grand Duchy of Brunswick, Mecklemburg - Schwerin, and Saxe-Weimar, Gotha, Coburg, Meiningen, Hil- Hohenzollern Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, 24 15 6 Lippe, Hesse-Homburg, Lubeck, Frankfort, 25 Total 70. Every question to be submitted to the general assembly of the diet is first discussed in the ordinary assembly, where it is decided by a majority of the votes. But in the general assembly, (in pleno,) two-thirds of all the votes are necessary to a decision. The ordinary assembly determines what subjects are to be submitted to the general assembly. But all questions concerning the adoption or alteration of the fundamental laws of the confederation, or organic regulations establishing permanent institutions as means of carrying into effect the declared objects of the union, or the admission of new members, or concerning the affairs of religion, must be submitted to the general assembly; and in all these cases, absolute unanimity is necessary to a final decision. The diet has power to establish fundamental laws for the confederation, and organic regulations as to its foreign, military, and internal relations. We have already stated the provisions of the federal act restricting the power of the several members of the union in making war, and entering into treaties of peace and alliance with foreign powers, as well as the stipulation securing to each state of Germany a local constitution. The subjects of each sovereign member of the union have the right of acquiring and holding real property in any other state of the confederation, of emigrating from one state to another with the consent of the latter; of entering into the military or civil service of any one of the confederated states, subject to the permanent claim of their own native sovereign or state. These subjects are also exempt from every tax or duty (jus detractus, gabella emigrationis) on the removal of their effects from one state to another, unless where reciprocal compacts have stipulated to the contrary. The same article (18) declares that the diet shall have power to establish uniform laws relating to the freedom of the press, and securing to authors the copyright of their works throughout the confederation. The different Christian sects throughout the confederation are entitled to an equality of civil and political rights; and the diet is empowered to take into consideration the means of ameliorating the civil condition of the Jews, and of securing to them in all the states of the union the full enjoyment of civil rights, upon condition that they submit themselves to all the duties and obligations of other citizens. In the mean time, the privileges granted to them by any particular state, are to be maintained. The diet has also power to regulate the commercial intercourse between the different states, and the free navigation of the rivers belonging to the confederation according to the general principles established by the treaty of Vienna. This compact, which is far from containing a complete enumeration of the powers meant to be conferred upon the federal body by its several members, differs, in several material particulars, from the ancient constitution of the Germanic empire with its imperial head, its hierarchy of princes, its electors, its free towns, and its judicial tribunals. The ancient diet was composed of three colleges, each independent of the other; and the assent of the emperor was indispensably necessary to the validity of its decrees. The present diet consists of a collective and sovereign assembly uncontrolled, in theory at least, by any superiour authority. The Germanic confederation, as constituted by the federal act of 1815, does not, however, essentially differ from an ordinary equal alliance between independent sovereign states; except by its permanence, and the greater number and importance of its objects; and • Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tom. ii. pp. 353-378. belongs to that class of federal compacts where the sovereignty of each member of the union remains unimpaired, and the resolutions of the federal body are enforced, not as laws directly binding on the individual subjects, but through the agency of each separate government, adopting them, and giving them the force of law within its own jurisdiction. Vienna, 1820. The extent of the powers conferred on the diet by the Additional fefederal act of 1815 was more fully defined by an additional deral act of act signed at Vienna, on the 15th May, 1820, and ratified by the diet at Fankfort on the 8th of June of the same year. This act also introduced several modifications in the fundamental laws of the confederation, which without essentially altering its theoretical character as an equal league of independent states, established many positive restraints upon their sovereignty, and subjected its exercise in many cases to the superintending authority of the diet. By the terms of this act, the diet may interfere to suppress any rebellion or insurrection, or in case of imminent danger thereof, in any state, as threatening the general safety of the confederation. And it may, in like manner, interfere to suppress such rebellion or insurrection by the common forces of the confederation, if the local government is prevented by the insurgents from making such application, upon the notoriety of the facts of the existence of such insurrection, or imminent danger thereof. By the fifty-fourth article of the final act of 1820, it is provided, that the diet shall take care that the stipulation contained in the thirteenth article of the federal act of 1815, respecting the establishment of local constitutions of states, shall not remain without effect in any confederated state. But the fifty-fifth article declares, that it belongs exclusively to the sovereign princes of the confederation to regulate this matter in the interest of their respective countries, having regard to the ancient rights of the assemblies of states, as well as to the relations actually existing. Whilst the fifty-sixth article provides, that the constitutions of states, actually in force, cannot be changed except in a constitutional manner. By the fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth articles, it is declared, that the Germanic confederation constituting, with the exception of the free towns, a union consisting of sovereign princes, the fundamental principle of this union requires that all the powers of sovereignty should remain united in the supreme head of the government; and that the sovereign cannot, by the local constitution, be required to admit the coöperation of the states except as to the exercise of rights specifically determined. And that no particular constitution can restrain the sovereign confederated princes in the exercise of the duties imposed on them by the federal union. The sixtieth article provides, that the diet may guaranty the local constitution established in any particular state of the confederation on the application of such state. The diet acquires by this guarantee the right of supporting the constitution on the application of either of the parties interested, and of terminating the differences which may arise upon its interpretation or execution, either by mediation, or by arbitration, unless such constitution shall have provided other means of terminating such differences. Finally, the fifty-ninth article provides, that in those states of the confederation, where the publicity of debates in the legislative chambers is recognized by the constitution, there shall be established a regulation to prevent the legal bounds of the freedom of opinions being transgressed, either in the debates themselves, or in their publication through the press, in such a manner as to endanger the tranquility of the particular state, or of Germany in general. The limitations, contained in the federal act of 1815 upon the war-making and treaty-making power of the several members of the confederation, were also more completely defined by the act of 1820; so as effectually to secure, at least so far as treaties and laws can secure, the union of the German nations against the attacks of any |