In there was a tax resistance crisis in Germany, when the executive attempted to govern independently from the legislature and the National Assembly declared that citizens had no obligation to pay for it. Karl Marx was among those members of the press who spread the news of the authorized tax strike and who were prosecuted for this. He was acquitted, but others were not so lucky.
Here are some notes from the aftermath that made it into the British press. First, from the Caledonian Mercury:
The trial of M. [Benedikt] Waldeck has commen[ced?] that of M. Zeigler, burgomaster of Brandenburgh, charged with treason, for having, in his official capacity, published the tax refusing resolution of the late National Assembly, has ended with a verdict of guilty, and a sentence of six months’ imprisonment in a fortress, and deprivation of his order.
From the London Daily News:
During the last week we have had a signal instance of the capricious
mutability of the public taste in relation to the political topics of the day,
and of the fluctuating value of the wares of the news market. No event has
exercised a more critical influence over the fate of Prussia than the decree
of the Rump of the National Assembly, on
, to refuse to the Brandenburg ministry, then just a week in
office, the means of carrying on the government. This hoisting of the
revolutionary standard isolated the democratic party in one instant completely
from the mass of the nation, whose sympathies had until that moment seriously
inclined to their cause, or at least wavered. The country rallied at once to
the throne; and when the landwehr was called out, not a man disobeyed the
royal summons. The tax-refusers (Stener verweigerer) were
from that hour doomed, and the democratic cause was lost. Still the public eye
followed with a singular interest those bold citizens who had bidden defiance
to the crown. Nearly all of them were returned as members to the Second
Chamber of , mostly by
the populations of the large cities. The nine deputies elected on that
occasion by Berlin were all Stener-verweigerer, and nearly
the entire Left of the new assembly was composed of the same compromised
category. Still there was drawn an important line of distinction between such
as had voted for the decree of the National Assembly purely and simply without
joining the agitation to carry the decree into practical effect throughout the
country; and such as had by the distribution of proclamations, by inflammatory
speeches, and other such means, attempted to organise a resistance on the part
of the people to the payment of taxes. It furnishes a valuable testimony to
the constitutional disposition of the most democratic assembly which could be
returned in Prussia under a system of universal suffrage, that only 42 out of
the large majority which voted the refusal of taxes were found rash enough to
attempt to bring that vote to a practical result. Those 42 are now arraigned
at the bar of the criminal jury court. The most eminent among them are
[Hermann] Schulz,
[Ludwig] Hildenhagen,
[Philipp] Von
Berg, and [Lothar]
Bucher. The trial of these offenders, which a year ago would have roused
the keenest political excitement throughout Germany, has gone on during the
last week without moving the faintest curiosity.
The National Zeitung, chief democratic organ,
apologizes to its readers for confining its extracts to the speech of Schulz.
The printer, who cleared several thousand thalers by giving separately the
earliest edition of the short-hand report of Waldeck’s trial, has sunk a
considerable part of his gains in the new enterprise of issuing a
corresponding account of the Stener-verweigerungs process.
Without going into immaterial details and tedious formalities, I shall state
briefly the line of argument adopted by the prosecution and the defence. The
offence charged in the indictment is incitement of his majesty’s subjects to
rebellion. Rebellion (says the Staats-Anwalt) is resistance
to the king’s government. Never had the king at any lawful time divested
himself of the prerogative of choosing his own ministers. Therefore the
Brandenburg government was lawful. But there can be no more serious act of
resistance to a government than to deny it the means of carrying on the
administration. Not only did the 42 accused incite by writing, word of mouth,
and manifold means of agitation, to such resistance, but they actually
encouraged the people to seize and sequester the cash-boxes of the state.
Proclamations would be exhibited, signed with the names of many, encouraging
the peaceable citizens to such acts of violence. Letters and a vast volume of
testimony would be produced, in order fully to establish the charges contained
in the indictment. The line of argument adopted by the defence is by no means
so simple, and goes into some of the most thorny questions of political
jurisprudence. In the first place, the defendants admitted all the evidence of
importance brought against them. But the offence with which they were charged,
attempted rebellion, must, according to the statute, be accompanied by some
acts of violence. Now, they had been guilty of no such act themselves, nor had
they instigated others to use force. They employed a legal passive resistance
against an illegal government. The Brandenburgh government was illegal,
because it not only had no majority in the national parliament, but dissolved
an assembly called together for the purpose of framing a constitution in
consent with the sovereign, which could not be legally dissolved before it had
completed that mission. By the King’s promises of
, the constitutional principle of
self-government had been introduced into Prussia; and the very heart of
constitutionalism was that no ministers were entitled to the confidence of the
king, without also possessing the confidence of the people shown by a
parliamentary majority in favour of those ministers. Therefore, the ministry
of Count Brandenburgh was illegal in its composition, and illegal in its acts.
Now, the National Assembly had, undoubtedly, the right of withholding supplies
from such a government; for the king in the patent prefixed to the electoral
law, by which the National Assembly was chosen, had expressly declared that
the same privileges, which had been promised on
, to the
Reichs-Stände, or estates of the realm, should be also
competent to the National Assembly. But one of the chief of those privileges
was the right of voting the taxes
(Stener-bewilligungs-Recht.) The crown prosecutor had
attempted to draw a distinction between the right of voting and the right of
refusing taxes, the Stener-bewilligungs-Recht and the
Stener-verweigerungs-Recht, but the fact was that they were
the same thing; else the first mentioned privilege was no privilege at all.
The decree of the National Assembly was therefore perfectly legal and
constitutional; and the attempt to realise it was equally so, because the
assembly was not affected in its existence by the arbitrary dissolution by
the government. The taxes withheld were not to be used for the purpose of
levying war upon the King, God forbid, but they were simply to be reserved for
other ministers who enjoyed the confidence both of his Majesty and the
parliament. There was no violence in such a proceeding at all; it was merely a
sort of constitutional blockade of an unconstitutional cabinet, and was the
only peaceful remedy let to the people against absolute and arbitrary rule.
Another circumstance was, that not only was inviolability guaranteed to the
persons of the National Assembly, but it was expressly stipulated before they
were convoked that they should not be called to account for their acts before
the legal tribunals. The state prosecutor said that they had not been called
to account for their acts in the house, but for their acts out of it. This, it
was said on the part of the defence, was a proof that the government was
conscious of illegality of the dissolution of the National Assembly; else, why
were not all those members prosecuted, who had voted for the decree. The
Staats-Anwalt replied to this that the two offences were
distinct, and it could not be concluded from the prosecution of the more
flagrant that the other was regarded as no offence at all.
It is expected that a verdict of not guilty will be returned in the case of
the tax-refusers. Schulze’s speech, of which I gave yesterday the substance,
produced a great effect on the court.
A follow-up from the London Daily News:
The trial of the tax-refusers is at last over. The jury, after consulting for
several hours, at gave
their verdict. They pronounced 36 out of the 37 accused who appeared “not
guilty;” but the eminent talent of the man whom they selected for a victim
more than compensated this equitable decision. Bucher, the best, coolest, and
most closely logical head and speaker in the Prussian parliament, was declared
guilty. He was condemned for being the last to quit the field in a hopeless
cause; and the doom, if heavy, is not dishonourable. This morning the public
prosecutor moved that, in consideration of his exertions having produced no
result, the sentence should be limited to two years’ imprisonment in a
fortress, loss of national cockade, and offices. The court modified this
sentence in one particular, reducing the imprisonment to 15 months. His
offices as assessor and common councilman were taken away. Of the four who did
not appear to plead, three were declared guilty: two of an attempt to excite
rebellion, and the third of insulting the King’s majesty. The last was
condemned to 3 months’ common imprisonment, and the others to 15 months’
confinement in a fortress.
Hessian leader Hans Daniel Hassenpflug’s anti-Constitutionalist moves, which included dissolving the state legislature in , led to another tax resistance campaign. Bavarian (and Austrian) troops marched in to Hesse to protect its autocracy against an anticipated Prussian invasion (and against the rage of the Hessian democrats).
Here’s a report from that incident, from the Reynolds’s Newspaper:
Since the Bavarian troops have been within the walls of Rothenberg the
proceedings against the tax-refusers and opposers of the September ordinances
began. These proceedings are carried out in the most shameless way. The judge,
who, with his mother, 80 years of age, inhabits a small apartment, has been
forced to give up his parlour and his bedrooms to soldiers who are quartered
upon him; and it is not permitted to such “rebels” to find another lodging out
of their own houses. No; there must be personal punishment, as well as the
cost of entertaining soldiers. The judge, Von Urff, had eight men quartered on
him, but being dangerously ill, they were, on the urgent representations of
physicians, withdrawn; the next day a letter was sent him from Count von
Rechberg; the doctors would not suffer it to be delivered, lest the excitement
should prove fatal to their patient. On the following day however, an adjutant
forced his way into the sick man’s bedchamber and delivered the letter, the
purport of which was that he should, within the space of twelve hours,
acknowledge the validity of the September ordinances, or suffer the
consequences. He immediately sent in his resignation. And such things are done
in the 19th century, and in the face of civilised
Europe.
