Erfurt Reich Election Law

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The law on elections for members of the People's House (Erfurt Reich election law , Union election law ) of May 26, 1849 regulated the elections to the Erfurt Union Parliament , which finally took place in late 1849 / early 1850. You were the only one for whom the law was applied. The model of the law was the Frankfurt Reich election law of April 12, 1849, but the Erfurt variant greatly favored the rich. With the end of the Erfurt Union in the course of 1850, the law became obsolete, while the Frankfurt Law finally served as a model for the elections in the North German Confederation in 1866/1867 .

Creation and content

Even before Prussia openly opposed the National Assembly in May, it announced that it would agree with the other German states on a new constitution for a German Empire. The Epiphany Alliance of May 26, 1849 agreed not only on the Erfurt Union Constitution , but also on a new electoral law (with the same official title as the model). Both resembled their Frankfurt models to the letter, but were modified in a conservative sense.

A primary election in 1848

The right to vote was based on the Prussian three-class suffrage , in which voters were divided into three classes according to their tax income. The classes included different numbers of voters, but each sent the same number of MPs. However, Erfurt's right to vote was even stricter than the Prussian: At the urging of Hanover and Saxony, only those who paid a direct state tax and who were allowed to participate in the municipal elections of their place of residence were allowed to vote.

To this end, the law reintroduced the criterion of self-employment, as it was already in the Federal Electoral Act of 1848, but it defined self-employment instead of leaving this to the individual states. In addition, the law provided for indirect voting via electors (Section 11). As in the Frankfurt model, “people who hold a public office” did not need a leave of absence to become a member of the Volkshaus, but the Erfurt law stipulated that they “had to bear the costs of their official representation” (Section 7). This severely restricted the right to stand for election for civil servants.

The Administrative Council of the Union decided that the primary elections should take place on November 17, 1849, the elections in which the citizens entitled to vote voted the electors. On January 31, 1850, the electors elected the actual members of the Volkshaus; the members of the house of states were appointed or elected by the individual states. The individual states were responsible for the legal basis and the organization of the Volkshaus elections, so Prussia issued a corresponding ordinance on November 26, 1849, while other states involved passed laws.

New discussion on electoral law

On June 25-27, 1849, right-wing liberals who had been a member of the National Assembly the previous month met in the Gotha post-parliament . The Erfurt suffrage was a blatant departure from the Frankfurt suffrage and privileged the rich even more than an ordinary census suffrage . A group around Heinrich von Gagern wanted it not to be stricter than the Prussian. This opinion was reflected in a statement by the post-parliament, but the assembly generally accepted the Erfurt draft constitution and the electoral law.

In the Union Parliament of Erfurt , the right to vote came back on the agenda on March 25, 1850: The state house of the Reichstag decided for the constitution that the electoral laws of the individual states must adhere to the requirements of the Reich Election Act. This should not prescribe exactly the same three-tier suffrage, but everywhere the right to vote should be restricted and unequal. The Prussian highly conservative Otto von Manteuffel justified this with the fact that democratic sources of fire could not be tolerated in the individual states. The liberal opposing side feared that the Erfurt Union, like the German Confederation, would be the bearer of the reaction. The middle classes could then band together with the lower classes out of bitterness.

After the constitutional committee joined the state house, a compromise was reached in the plenum of the people's house. The Reich legislation should later be allowed to make provisions about how the right to vote in the individual states should look. Because of the supremacy of Prussia, this would probably have meant that the three-class suffrage would have been enforced everywhere.

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supporting documents

  1. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, pp. 719/720.
  2. ^ Jochen Lengemann: The German Parliament of 1850. Elections, members of parliament, parliamentary groups, presidents, votes. In: Gunther Mai (Ed.): The Erfurt Union and the Erfurt Union Parliament. Böhlau, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2000, pp. 307–340, here p. 308.
  3. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 722.
  4. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 773.
  5. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 774.