In 1847 Bismarck entered actively into the political life of the nation. It was at the time when King Frederick William IV., yielding to the importunities of the Liberals, convoked a preliminary Diet, at which Bismarck was present to supply the place of a member rendered incapable of attending through sickness. Therein he showed himself an indefatigable defender of the conservatives against the demands of the Liberals, making himself soon the chief of his party. This consultive Diet was forced to yield, the following year, 1848, to the popular demand for a more representative assembly. Another Diet accordingly met and voted for universal suffrage and the immediate elaboration of a new constitution. Bismarck distinguished himself in that Assembly, as in the preceding, by his unyielding opposition to Liberal innovations, and by the violence and asperity which characterized his utterances. To propagate his ideas Bismarck founded a journal, which remains even yet the organ of the Conservative party in Germany, the _Gazette of the Cross_. As a result of Bismarck's many efforts, the King, urged on by the nobility, dispersed the Parliament, assembled the troops in Berlin and placed the city in a state of siege. The same year, 1848, the national Diet, composed of Liberals and Conservatives, met at Frankfort, and decided to re-establish the Empire, offering the imperial crown to the King of Prussia. In this matter Bismarck strongly opposed the views of the delegates and induced the King to refuse the proffered honor. The same actions recurred in the following year, Bismarck taking the same stand against German unity. Thenceforth the new statesman began to be a power for the Kingdom of Prussia. His hatred of Austria seems to have dictated all his policies for the next twenty years. The war for the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, the war against Austria in 1866, the question of the Duchy of Luxembourg, and even the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, were all inspired by the fear that Austria should become too powerful, and deprive the Protestant State of Prussia of that ascendancy which Bismarck more than any other determined that she should have.