Chapter 5: political studies abroad
- Dana visits Berlin -- Republican movement in Germany and Austria -- Louis Napoleon elected president of France -- doubts of his honesty and sincerity -- summary of political situation -- returns to America -- Review of socialism
Dana left Paris about October 6th, and arrived at Berlin shortly afterwards. His first letter from that place was dated October 10th, and gave a general account of the republican movement throughout Germany. It indicates a close study of conditions not only in that country but in Austria-Hungary as well. In both, as in France, the people were arrayed against the nobility, for the abolition of unjust feudal rights and of unlimited power, for the establishment of equality under the law, for individual and collective liberty, for free religion, free press, and for a wider distribution of the soil. While they favored a united Germany under a republican government, they had not yet, says Dana, adopted “the absurd idea that German nationality must include every race that speaks the German language, or which has ever been under German authority.” Here, as in France, Dana, speaking their language fluently, and mixing with the people freely in their places of meeting and amusement, speedily gained their confidence and became acquainted with their inmost aims and aspirations. Considering their aptitude for giving practical application to abstract ideas, he hastened to declare:
... The question of this age, I begin to think, must be decided in Germany. It was here that was accomplished the
