The resolution of Bennigsen was voted on March 30, 1871, by a majority of 150. It was but the prelude of open hostilities. On April 1, 3 and 4, a discussion upon the Constitution was in progress, and Peter Reichensperger, of the Centre, endeavored to conserve in the new document the religious liberties guaranteed by the Constitution of 1850, with its consequences of freedom of worship and freedom of association. Under the leadership of Lasker, Treitschke and Blankenberg, the Liberals again repulsed the claims of the Catholic despite the fervid and logical eloquence of Bishop Ketteler. By a vote of 223 to 59 these liberties were expunged from the Constitution, and at its reading one of the Liberals, Marquard, remarked: "We have declared war upon Ultramontainism, and we will carry it to a finish." The efforts of the Centre, however, although meeting with repulse in their first appearances, were yet indicative of a power with which the Liberal party would have to reckon. Hence it was considered necessary to effect its ruin in order that the principles of State absolution should acquire the domination to which it aspired. To effect this object, Bismarck made use of a stratagem entirely in accord with his usual dishonesty and lack of scruple. His plan was no other than to throw discredit upon the Centre attack in the eyes of the Catholic people. He had already misrepresented the Centre before the Holy See as a source of trouble for the Church in the Empire, and he strove to induce the Holy See to formally disavow the operations of the Centre. Not being able to obtain such a disavowal, he pretended that he had actually obtained it. One of the Catholic members, Count Frankenberg, was deceived by the assurances of the Chancellor, and abandoned the party, on May 17, 1871, without giving any apparent reason. Three days later Malincrodt, certain of the trickery of Bismarck, published a formal protest against such an unworthy manoeuvre. Frankenberg, beginning to doubt, asked of Bismarck an explanation, and was assured that "the interview of which you have spoken between Count Tauffkirchen and the Cardinal Secretary of State will hardly be revoked. The Centre party has been disapproved. This disapprobation does not surprise me after the evidences of satisfaction and the expressions of entire confidence which His Majesty, the King, has received from His Holiness, the Pope, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the German Empire." So categorical an avowal at first threw the Catholics into a state of consternation, but Bishop Ketteler, of Mentz, feeling that something was wrong, wrote to Cardinal Antonelli, who at once, on June 5, sent a solemn denial of the interview, which was published as an answer to the declaration of Bismarck.