Constitutional Committee of the Frankfurt National Assembly

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Members of the Constitutional Committee

The Constitutional Committee of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848/1849 submitted preliminary drafts for a German national constitution. He also dealt with, for example, the right to vote and ministerial responsibility, although these should be regulated in individual laws, i.e. outside the constitution. The Frankfurt National Assembly largely followed the committee's guidelines for the Frankfurt Constitution of March 28, 1849.

Education and composition

On May 24, 1848, the National Assembly elected a permanent constitutional committee with thirty members to draw up a draft constitution. It included the former chairmen of the pre-parliament , committee of seventeen and committee of fifties : Mittermaier, Maximilian von Gagern and von Soiron. Heinrich von Gagern was elected, but rejected the election because he was still a minister in the Grand Duchy of Darmstadt. In addition, as President of the National Assembly, he was able to attend committee meetings anyway.

Members were:

Nine out of ten of the members had relevant publications in constitutional law, six out of ten had been politically active since the Heppenheim assembly . The committee was accused, however, of the fact that the Southwest Germans were clearly overrepresented, at least at the beginning. The right-wing liberal casino faction was more than twice as represented as in the entire National Assembly. Seventy percent of the committee members belonged to the government groups ( Casino , Württemberger Hof , Augsburger Hof , Landsberg ).

Activity for the imperial constitution

The Constitutional Committee met in 1848/1849 in 181 sessions (for comparison: the corresponding committees had only 42 sessions in 1919 and only 49 in 1948/1949). After the first parts of the draft constitution had been introduced, around a hundred sessions of the entire National Assembly dealt at least in part with its issues. For the later assemblies in 1919 and 1948/1949 the corresponding figures are also lower. This has to do with the fact that in 1919 and 1948/1949 there were official drafts of the constitution that had already been worked through.

The Constitutional Committee gave the National Assembly an important impetus early on, specifically on the question of whether provisions in state constitutions may conflict with those in the future imperial constitution ( Raveaux proposal ). Like the Committee of Seventeen and Committee of Fifties, the Constitutional Committee denied this possibility, as did the plenary session of the National Assembly. This was a preliminary decision for the state. In other respects, too, says Jörg-Detlef Kühne , “the definitive constitution largely adheres to the procedure of the constitutional committee,” in addition to the preparations for implementing laws. On May 26, the committee decided to set up a subcommittee for fundamental rights, with Dahlmann, Mohl and Mühlfeldt. They submitted a first draft on June 1, which was submitted to the plenary session of the National Assembly on June 19.

A particularly hotly contested issue led to the worst vote defeat of a committee proposal in the history of the National Assembly, said Manfred Botzenhart. On October 25, the committee decided to keep the electoral law issues out of the constitution and to fix them in a separate electoral law . Ahrens from Westendhall and Scheller and Waitz from Casino were on the relevant subcommittee . After a heated discussion, the Constitutional Committee then narrowly proposed a more liberal-conservative suffrage that excluded many adult men from voting for financial reasons. Only 21 MPs voted in favor in the plenary session of the National Assembly, 422 against.

Another controversial topic was an imperial council in the imperial constitution. This organ could have represented the interests of the individual state governments better than the state house of the Reichstag, but it should only have advisory functions. The opponents believed that the Reichsrat could have developed into a particularistic stumbling block, in spite of its formal advisory function, i.e. a means of the individual states to slow down progress. The committee pleaded for the Reichsrat, the plenary rejected it with 211 to 200 votes. It was also controversial whether the Reich was allowed to specify the form of government for the individual states. The committee ultimately decided that changes in the national form of government required the consent of the authorities.

On February 11 and 14, 1849, a competing Greater German Constitutional Committee was formed when the question of Greater German / Small German superimposed the constitutional deliberations. It included MPs from the Right and the Right Center such as Heckscher, Welcker and Sommaruga. According to them, German-speaking Austria should be part of Germany. Instead of a hereditary emperor, the empire should have a collective government and the federal elements should be strengthened.

Further tasks

The constitutional committee also drew up the basic rights of the German people , a catalog of basic rights that was supposed to secure and expand the freedom of the Germans and other achievements of the revolution. It was passed in advance as an imperial law on December 27, 1848 and was later incorporated into the imperial constitution almost unchanged.

The preparations for implementing laws, some of which remained unfinished, received less attention. Much of it dealt with materially belonged to the constitution. The Central Power Act already provided for a law on ministerial responsibility . This was not the case, as was a number of other implementing laws. However, the committee submitted an electoral law for the People's House of the Reichstag, which was passed on April 12, 1849.

swell

  • Johann Gustav Droysen: The negotiations of the constitutional committee of the German National Assembly, Leipzig 1849
  • Rudolf Hübner (Ed.): Files and records on the history of the Frankfurt National Assembly from the estate of Johann Gustav Droysen, Stuttgart 1924
  • Sibylle pupil; Frank Möller (ed.): As a democrat in the Paulskirche. The letters and reports of the Jena deputy Gottlieb Christian Schüler 1848/49 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Thuringia, large series, vol. 9), Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2007

See also

supporting documents

  1. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume II: The struggle for unity and freedom 1830 to 1850 . 3rd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [ua] 1988, p. 775.
  2. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne : The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), pp. 44/45.
  3. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne: The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), p. 583.
  4. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne: The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), p. 45.
  5. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne: The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), p. 55.
  6. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne: The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), pp. 45-48.
  7. ^ Ernst Rudolf Huber: German constitutional history since 1789. Volume II: The struggle for unity and freedom 1830 to 1850 . 3rd edition, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [ua] 1988, p. 775.
  8. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 664, p. 667.
  9. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 657.
  10. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 658.
  11. ↑ Manfred Botzenhart: German Parliamentarism in the Revolutionary Period 1848–1850. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, p. 680.
  12. ^ Jörg-Detlef Kühne: The imperial constitution of the Paulskirche. Model and realization in later German legal life. Habil. Bonn 1983, 2nd edition, Luchterhand, Neuwied 1998 (1985), pp. 47/48.