Lüttwitz had meanwhile the effect on these discussions now well known. The Democrats concluded from it that thereafter all attempts to establish a military candidacy would be doomed to failure and that the people would never either nominate or support a dictator; and that therefore there was no longer any need to change the Constitution on this point. Every German is eligible provided he is thirty-five years old. The proposal in committee as well as the text of the Constitution at the second reading declared for an absolute ineligibility of members of families who had ever ruled a state in the German Empire. This provision was done away with on the third reading by a majority consisting of the German Nationalists, the People’s Party and the Centre. The motive expressed by the representatives of these parties was that this measure would constitute a law of exception of the most shameful kind, contrary to the principles of the Constitution, that it was a confession of weakness and an avowal of the lack of solidity in the benefits afforded by the victories of the Revolution. But how shall the President be elected? After long discussion the National Assembly decided that the election of the President should not be regulated by the Constitution but that the matter should be left to an ordinary law. The Assembly was not able to decide either for the proposition of the Cabinet or for that of the Committee on the Constitution. The proposal of the Cabinet provided for a general election. If in the first canvass no candidate received the majority of the votes cast, a second one would have to take place in which only the two candidates who had received the largest number of votes in the first canvass could run. Of these two candidates the one who obtained the majority would be elected. This proposal aroused serious opposition in the Constitutional Committee. It was held that, given a multiplicity of political parties, it was probable that in the first canvass a great number of candidates would present themselves and consequently at the second ballot neither of the two surviving candidates would rally to his support any important fraction of the whole people. On the other hand, it would be difficult before the first vote to effect any union among neighbouring parties on a common candidacy, because up to that moment the various groups would not know what possibilities there were for the election of their own candidates. In any event the position of the President would be weakened, for a great number of those voting for him would not do so primarily out of sympathy with him, but in order to keep out some other person still less in their confidence. All the criticisms that were made at another time against the balloting under the former electoral law would be applicable here with added force, since it was a matter of the election of the personality who must be vested with the highest dignity in the Reich.