[Footnote 76: The three years are shortened to one year for those who have taken a high place in the Gymnasia (highest of the public schools); they feed and equip themselves and are termed "volunteers." Conscription is the rule on the coasts for service in the German Navy. For the text of the Imperial Constitution, see Lowe, _Life of Bismarck_, vol. ii. App. F.] The secondary States are protected in one important respect. The last proviso of the Imperial Constitution stipulates that any proposal to modify it shall fail if fourteen, or more, votes are cast against it in the Federal Council. This implies that Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony, if they vote together, can prevent any change detrimental to their interests. On the whole, the new system is less centralised than that of the North German Confederation had been; and many of the Prussian Liberals, with whom the Crown Prince of Prussia very decidedly ranged himself on this question, complained that the government was more federal than ever, and that far too much had been granted to the particularist prejudices of the Southern States[77]. To all these objections Bismarck could unanswerably reply that it was far better to gain this great end without bitterness, even if the resulting compact were in some respects faulty, than to force on the Southern States a more logically perfect system that would perpetuate the sore feeling of the past. [Footnote 77: J.W. Headlam, _Bismarck_, p. 367.] Such in its main outlines is the new Constitution of Germany. On the whole, it has worked well. That it has fulfilled all the expectations aroused in that year of triumph and jubilation will surprise no one who knows that absolute and lasting success is attained only in Utopias, never in practical politics. In truth, the suddenness with which German unity was finally achieved was in itself a danger.