But, while Hungary supplied the model of constitutional government, the
hope for a wider national life connected itself more and more with the
idea of a united Germany. Two days after the delivery of Kossuth's
speech an impulse had been given to this latter feeling by the meeting
at Heidelberg of the leading supporters of German unity; and they had
elected a committee of seven to prepare the way for a constituent
assembly at Frankfort. Of these seven, two came from Baden, one from
Wurtemberg, one from Hesse-Darmstadt, one from Prussia, one from
Bavaria, and one from Frankfort. Thus it will be seen that South Germany
still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the president
of the committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been known to
Germany chiefly by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But, though this
distribution of power augured ill for the relations between the leaders
of the German movement and the King of Prussia, the meeting at
Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete programme of the Baden
leaders, nor to commit itself to that Republican movement which would
probably have repelled the North German Liberals.
The chief leader of the more moderate party in the meeting was Heinrich
von Gagern, the representative of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Gagern was the son of a former minister of the Grand Duke of Nassau, who
had left that State to take service in Austria, and who had acted with
the Archduke John in planning a popular rising in the Tyrol in 1813.
Heinrich had been trained at a military school in Munich. He had
steadily opposed the policy of Metternich, had done his best to induce
the universities to co-operate in a common German movement, and had
tried to secure internal liberties for Hesse-Darmstadt, while he had
urged his countrymen to look for the model of a free constitution rather
to England and Hungary than to France. During the constitutional
movement of 1848 he had become Prime Minister of Hesse-Darmstadt; and he
seems to have had considerable power of winning popular confidence.
Although he was not able to commit the meeting to a definitely
monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract the attempts
of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the proclamation of a
republic; and his influence increased during the later phases of the
movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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