The parties of the Right, for whom the authority given the President seems never strong enough, wanted to give him still another power, the right to prescribe a referendum or to dissolve the Reichstag without a countersignature of a Minister. The President, they held, would never be able to secure the countersignature of a Minister to a dissolution of the Reichstag, or to appeal to the people against the Reichstag, because ministers depend for their official lives on the confidence the Reichstag reposes in them. It will be necessary in such a case, therefore, for the President to form a new ministry to countersign his ordinance. But if the electors of the nation decide against a President, he will have to call back to office the former Ministry. Of what use is this roundabout method? But Preuss vigorously defended the necessity of the countersignature, dictated by principles of a republican democracy and of parliamentarism. He began by reviewing the hypothesis of a referendum. In such a situation, he said, one of two possibilities occurs. Either the President and the Minister are in agreement to prescribe a referendum; in which case would the Minister refuse his countersignature? That would be contrary to the normal relations which must exist between the President and his Ministry; especially, too, as a referendum is subject to certain conditions imposed by the Constitution, and these conditions have to be observed and some one must take the responsibility in case they are violated. Or in the other case, the more important, the Ministry are against the referendum; they are determined not to permit such a politically important act to be committed against their best judgment. In such a situation the Ministry will immediately resign and the President, not being able to remain without a Ministry, would have to form a new one. Whether or not, therefore, the countersignature of a Minister to such decrees is required, the situation culminates in a change of Ministry. But it is more natural that if the President wants to bring about an act against the political convictions of his Ministry, he will seek a Cabinet that will accept the responsibility for this act.