This institution, therefore, comprehends both historic tradition and the actual situation of the Reich. But it marks at the same time a progress in the sense of a stronger unity of the Reich, and it should in the future facilitate a new development of the unitary idea. 2.--THE COMPOSITION AND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE REICHSRAT. “In the National Council each State has at least one vote. In the case of the larger States one vote is accorded for every million inhabitants. Any excess equal at least to the population of the smallest State is reckoned as equivalent to a full million. No State shall be accredited with more than two-fifths of all votes.” (Article 61.) The original proposal provided that three years after the Constitution had entered into effect, small States having less than a million inhabitants would lose their right to be represented in the Reichsrat. The obvious purpose of this provision was to compel, by indirect means, the small States to join together, as well as to prevent the unnecessary parcelling out of territories with the view of creating new States. This measure, however, was not accepted by the committee. We know that in its place the committee and the National Assembly accepted a resolution inviting the government to interpose in the hope of realizing a union of small States.[46] An early distribution of seats, after the adoption of the Constitution, on the basis of Article 61, gave to Prussia twenty-five votes out of the total of sixty-three in the Reichsrat. But, as we know, after May, 1920, seven small states of Central Germany formed the State of Thuringia, which had 1,584,324 inhabitants and was entitled to two votes. By this the number of non-Prussian votes in the Reichsrat was reduced by five, which also diminished the number of votes coming from Prussia from its former twenty-five to twenty-two. So long as no new changes in the interior geographic configuration of the Reich are made, the distribution of votes in the Reichsrat will be as follows: Prussia, twenty-two; Bavaria, seven; Saxony, five; Wurtemberg, three; Baden, three; Hesse, two; Thuringia, two; other States, one each. Total, fifty-five.