Country constitution

"Landstands Constitution" is an expression from Article 13 of the German Federal Act of 1815 for the German Confederation . That article said, “A Land Constitution will be in place in all states.” However, what was meant by such a constitution was not defined. This gave the individual states in the German Confederation the opportunity to postpone the establishment of a modern representative constitution.

Nevertheless, the provisions of the Federal Constitution were not without significance for the state constitutions. A sovereign was not allowed to arbitrarily abolish a constitution, but only to amend it according to the rules that were specified in the constitution itself. Subjects could complain if there was no permanent constitution; however, such complaints were inconsequential.

Furthermore, one finds the expression “rural constitution” in the contemporary debate as well as in today's history . What is meant are constitutions based on estates, with the participation of estates . Individual constitutions such as that of the Kingdom of Württemberg from 1815 also contain the expression.

Interpretations

The provision in Article 13 did not explain what was meant by “rural”, what requirements the constitution had to meet, and by when the individual states had to establish a constitution. This avoided interfering with the sovereignty of the sovereigns. The wording “will” instead of “should” was a weakening of the original wording from the draft.

Rural constitution as a representative constitution

The contemporaries no longer thought of an old-class constitution. But, according to Ernst Rudolf Huber , one vacillated in the interpretation "between the interpretation in the sense of historical status and the interpretation in the sense of a representation of the people in its current social structure." At that time, public opinion was thinking of a representative system possibly with a bicameral parliament , according to the southern German constitutions that were known until then. There

the first chamber was filled with nobles and other professional representatives (for example from churches or universities) and
If the active and passive right to vote was unequal, i.e. the haves and the educated were alone entitled to vote, had more votes or their vote was given greater voting weight,
In addition, the sovereign had a right of veto if he did not like a decision of the chambers.

Furthermore, there was no provision in Article 13 on how the constitution was to be brought into being. There were usually three options:

The sovereign was previously not bound by any constitution or class representation and could unilaterally enact a constitution ( imposed constitution ).
The sovereign had to agree the constitution with a representative of the estates that already existed (necessary constitutional agreement ),

or else he agreed it with a new parliament that was specifically elected to the agreement (voluntary constitutional agreement).

Rural constitution as a conservative counter-model

Friedrich von Gentz (drawing from 1825), a writer and politician from Prussia , was a close confidante of Metternich .

However, when the reaction grew stronger and turned against the revolutionary efforts in the German Confederation, the conservative journalist Friedrich von Gentz wrote an expert report "On the difference between the rural and representative constitutions" (1819). In his view, the expression in Article 13 meant: pre-existing bodies, such as the nobility, sent shop stewards to Parliament to represent these bodies. In the representative constitution, however, each member represents the entire people. According to Gentz, Article 13 even forbade a representative constitution that promoted the reprehensible idea of popular sovereignty .

Ernst Rudolf Huber vehemently contradicted this view. Gentz had simply equated the country-class constitutions with the old-class constitutions, thereby impermissibly restricting the constitutional autonomy of the countries. In 1815, the states deliberately left open the specific establishment of representative bodies in the federal act.

Michael Kotulla counters this by saying that the provisions of the federal act were “deliberately inadequately formulated”: “Open formulas are by no means as harmless as the soft compromise, which is sometimes reflected in the supposedly non-binding wording, suggests. They often form the legal gateway for measures that are undesirable by many, but by no means illegal per se. ”Gentz's interpretation is one possible, although not the only possible reading.

The Austrian State Chancellor Klemens von Metternich adopted Gentz's view. At the Karlsbad Conferences (1819) a headwind came from Bavaria and Baden , which already had representative constitutions. They even denied that these concrete constitutions corresponded to the type that Gentz described as representative constitution. The representative of Württemberg, on the other hand, said openly: With the Bavarian and Baden constitution, there were already representative constitutions in individual states, and this situation could not be reversed. Metternich failed with his main goal, but managed to ensure that hardly any new representative constitutions were created until 1830.

Vienna Final Act

Ernst August I , the king of Hanover since 1837. When he came to power, he repealed the current constitution. Despite Germany-wide outrage, the Bundestag did not intervene.

The Karlsbad Conferences led to the Vienna Final Act of 1820. Although the conservative statesmen wanted to reverse the Federal Constitution, they could not escape the logic of the matter and stabilized the state constitutions. They were against democracy , but also against arbitrary breaches of law from above, which endangered the order to be secured.

That was also the original intention behind Article 13 of the Federal Act: The autonomy of states with regard to their constitution was to be restricted, since the arbitrariness of the princes and despotism undermined the system of rule itself. Michael Kotulla: "The only thing that should be admitted was what could not be avoided due to the actual conditions in the countries - which were indeed very different."

This explains Articles 54 and 56 of the Vienna Final Act. Article 54 affirmed the duty of states to establish a constitution. Subjects could file a complaint if they did not. However, this meant little in practice - not surprising, since the leading states Austria and Prussia refused to adopt a constitution. Article 56 said: “The existing estates constitutions can only be changed in a constitutional way.” Therefore, sovereigns did not only have to prevent an overthrow from below. Nor were they allowed to change or abolish the constitution themselves in a coup d'état. The "recognized effectiveness" referred to the fact that the constitution was actually being applied - in this way it was not possible to restore an old, theoretically valid constitutional law that had simply not been applied since absolutism.

supporting documents

^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 640.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 641 f.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 643 f.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 644.
↑ Michael Kotulla: German Constitutional Law 1806-1918. A collection of documents and introductions. Volume 1: Germany as a whole, Anhalt states and Baden , Springer, Berlin [u. a.] 2006, p. 344.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 643-645.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 646.
↑ Michael Kotulla: German Constitutional Law 1806-1918. A collection of documents and introductions. Volume 1: Germany as a whole, Anhalt states and Baden , Springer, Berlin [u. a.] 2006, p. 342.
^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 646-649.

[1] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 640.

[2] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 641 f.

[3] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 643 f.

[4] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 644.

[5] Michael Kotulla: German Constitutional Law 1806-1918. A collection of documents and introductions. Volume 1: Germany as a whole, Anhalt states and Baden , Springer, Berlin [u. a.] 2006, p. 344.

[6] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 643-645.

[7] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, p. 646.

[8] Michael Kotulla: German Constitutional Law 1806-1918. A collection of documents and introductions. Volume 1: Germany as a whole, Anhalt states and Baden , Springer, Berlin [u. a.] 2006, p. 342.

[9] Ernst Rudolf Huber: German Constitutional History since 1789. Volume I: Reform and Restoration 1789 to 1830. 2nd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [u. a.] 1967, pp. 646-649.