[Footnote 310: For an excellent discussion of this general subject see W. J. Shepard, Tendencies toward Ministerial Responsibility in Germany, in _American Political Science Review_, Feb., 1911. In the course of an impassioned speech in the Reichstag in 1912, occasioned by a storm of protest against the Emperor's alleged threat to withdraw the newly granted constitution of Alsace-Lorraine, Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg stated the theory and fact of the office which he holds in these sentences: "No situation has been created for which I cannot take the responsibility. As long as I stand in this place I shield the Emperor (_trete ich vor den Kaiser_). This not for courtiers' considerations, of which I know nothing, but as in duty bound. When I cannot satisfy this my duty you will see me no more in this place."] There is a clause of the constitution[311] which confers upon the (p. 215) Chancellor the right to delegate the power to represent him to _any other_ member of the Bundesrath; whence it seems to follow that the Chancellor must be himself a member of that body. The relations of the Empire and the Prussian kingdom practically require, further, that the Chancellor be identified with the Prussian contingent in the federal chamber. Since, however, the Emperor, in his capacity of king of Prussia, designates the Prussian delegates in that body, it is open to him to make such an appointment in this second capacity as will enable him when selecting, in his Imperial capacity, a chancellor to procure the services of the man he wants. [Footnote 311: Art. 15, cl. 2. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I., 331.]