The Reichsrat is the successor of the Commission of States of the Provisional Constitution and of the Bundesrat of the old Constitution. But as the unitary idea made important progress, the Reichstag was endowed with powers considerably less extensive than those of the Bundesrat. The latter, which represented the confederated governments collectively, was the holder of sovereignty under the Empire. The Reichsrat, on the other hand, since the new Constitution placed sovereignty in the German people, is only an organ by which the governments of the states participate in the legislative and administrative powers of the Reich. Instead of being endowed, as compared to the Reichstag, with powers equal or superior to it, as the former Bundesrat was, it has received but very limited rights. The question whether it would not have been better to organize instead of the Reichsrat a Chamber of States, which would represent, not the various cabinets, but the populations of the states, was vigorously debated. It may be recalled that it was this solution Preuss proposed: a Chamber of States composed of delegates of German republics. These delegates would be elected by the Diets of the republics and would be selected from among the citizens of these republics. In principle, each state would have a delegate for each million inhabitants. Such an organism would constitute a very characteristic application of the centralist idea. But it was thought that this would create, by the side of the Reichstag, a new popular representation, and that this would not take into account the necessity of organizing a representation of states. What was needed actually was the creation of an organ, within which would be realized an equilibrium between the voices and the needs of the Reich on the one hand and the voices and the needs of the states on the other; if it was not wished to suppress completely the federal structure of the Reich and make of it simply a unitary state. This organism would have to include technical and vocational representatives of the interests of the states, leaving aside the idea of parties and all the programmes of parties. That is to say, there would have to be representatives of the governments of the states, not merely political representatives. The National Assembly decided on a Reichsrat organized on the model of the former Bundesrat, representing the governments of the states and endowed with less extensive powers. The Reichsrat differs profoundly as to authority from the old Bundesrat. It has lost completely the sovereign character of the Bundesrat. It has not even the right to issue administrative regulations, this right having been taken away from it and given to the Cabinet. It has ceased to be, in comparison with the Reichstag, a legislative organ invested with rights equal to those of the Reichstag; and it has no more than a very limited right to co-operate with it in legislative work.