_Through the courtesy of the World Peace Foundation the Yale University Press is enabled to reprint "The Constitution of the German Commonwealth" as it appeared in the_ League of Nations _for December, 1919. The following note on "The Terminology of the Constitution" by the translators, William Bennett Munro and Arthur Norman Holcombe, appeared in the introduction to the translation_: A word should be added in explanation of the way in which certain technical terms have been translated. It is no longer fitting, for example, to translate _Reich_ as empire. Yet it is not clear to what extent the old spirit as well as the old forms have changed. Certainly the "strange trappings and primitive authority" of the imperial government are gone. How far has the spirit as well as the form of government of, by, and for the People taken its place? It is too soon to say. Whatever the event may be, it seems best for Americans at this time to substitute for empire the less specialized expression, commonwealth. Another difficulty arises when _Reichs_- is used as a qualifier. Is the _Reichsrat_, for example, a federal council or a national council? This raises a fundamental question concerning the effect of the Revolution. Is the German Commonwealth a unified state or does it remain a confederation? Apparently the former federal States have not yet surrendered all their sovereign powers. The residue of sovereignty left to the States, however, is slight and unsubstantial. Recently, indeed (December, 1919), the Assembly of the principal State, Prussia, is reported to have adopted a resolution in favor of further centralization. As the Constitution stands, the Commonwealth appears to be a federation in which the rights of the States are subordinated to those of the Union to a far greater extent than in our own United States. It has seemed proper, therefore, to use the term "national" rather than "federal." The term _Reichsregierung_ might be translated National Government, or Administration, or Cabinet. We have adopted the term Cabinet because of its greater precision. Both the other expressions have a more general as well as a specialized meaning and would ordinarily be understood by Americans to include the President as well as the Chancellor and Ministers, who alone are the members of the Cabinet in the strict sense of the term. The _Regierung_ must be distinguished from the _Ministerium_. The latter term may designate either the whole body of ministers or the department of any one minister. In the text of the German Constitution it is used only in the latter sense.