Except that the reactionary forces were too weakly represented at Weimar to make them an actual source of danger this characterization of the Frankfort Congress might have been written about the proceedings of the National Assembly of February. It is a significant and illuminating fact that the greatest animation exhibited at any time during the first week of the assembly was aroused by a difference of meaning as to the definition of a word. Professor Hugo Preuss, Prussian Minister of the Interior, to whom had been entrusted the task of drafting a proposed constitution for the new republic, referred in a speech elucidating it, to "an absolute majority." "Does 'absolute majority' mean a majority of the whole number of delegates?" asked some learned delegate. The other delegates were galvanized instantly into the tensest interest. Here was a question worth while! What does "absolute majority" mean? An animated debate followed and was listened to with a breathless interest which the most weighty financial or economic questions had never succeeded in evoking. And while the National Assembly droned thus wearily on, clouds were again gathering over Berlin and other cities in the troubled young republic. CHAPTER XVII. The Spartacans Rise Again. Article xxvi of the armistice of November 11th declared: "The Allies and the United States have in view the provisioning of Germany during the armistice to the extent deemed necessary."[65] [65] Les Allies et les Etats-Unis envisagent le ravitaillement de l'Allemagne, pendant l'armistice, dans la mesure reconnue necessaire.