A more decisive step in a new direction was taken in 1862 by his lecture, _The Working-Men’s Programme; On the special Connection of the Present Epoch of History with the Idea of the Working Class_. The gist of this lecture was to show that we are now entering on a new era of history, of which the working class are the makers and representatives. It is a masterly performance, lucid in style, and scientific in method of treatment. Yet this did not save its author from the attentions of the Prussian police. Lassalle was brought to trial on the charge of exciting the poor against the rich, and in spite of an able defence, published under the title of _Science and the Workers_, he was condemned to four months’ imprisonment. But he appealed, and on the second hearing of the case made such an impression on the judges that the sentence was commuted into a fine of £15. Such proceedings naturally brought Lassalle into prominence as the exponent of a new way of thinking on social and political subjects. A section of the working men were, like himself, discontented with the current German Liberalism. The old democracy of 1848 was beginning to awake from the apathy and lassitude consequent on the failures of that troubled period. Men imbued with the traditions and aspirations of such a time could not be satisfied with the half-hearted programme of the Progressists, who would not decide on adopting universal suffrage as part of their policy, yet wished to utilise the workmen for their own ends. A Liberalism which had not the courage to be frankly democratic, could only be a temporary and unsatisfactory phase of political development. This discontent found expression at Leipsic, where a body of workmen, displeased with the Progressists, yet undecided as to any clear line of policy, had formed a Central Committee for the calling together of a Working Men’s Congress. With Lassalle, they had common ground in their discontent with the Progressists, and to him in 1863 they applied, in the hope that he might suggest a definite line of action. Lassalle replied in an _Open Letter_, with a political and social-economic programme, which, for lucidity and comprehensiveness of statement, left nothing to be desired. In the _Working Men’s Programme_, Lassalle had drawn the rough outlines of a new historic period, in which the interests of labour should be paramount; in the _Open Letter_ he expounds the political, social, and economic principles which should guide the working men in inaugurating the new era. The _Open Letter_ has well been called the Charter of German Socialism. It was the first historic act in a new stage of social development. We need not say that it marked the definite rupture of Lassalle with German Liberalism.