John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[85] Berlin, and the incompetence of both the civil and military leaders. To this should be added the fear of anarchy, the desire of quiet and profitable times, and a willingness on the part of many to accept a “constitutional throne” as a sufficient guarantee of their personal and property rights.

Dana indulged in the prophecy that Prussia, and with it Germany, must become a republic, but he did not venture to predict whether the change would be brought about peaceably or by revolution, nor how soon it might be expected. He thought that there were too many republicans and socialists, too many thinkers and writers, too many journals and magazines throughout Germany to permit the continuance of arbitrary rule; but how soon or how thorough the changes would be, he did not venture to predict. He recognized the effort to re-establish the empire on the basis of a customs-union, or zollverein, in which there should be free-trade between the states and a common tariff against all outside countries. He set forth the arguments in favor of a policy which should guard German industry against foreign competition, and grant free-trade to such countries only as would consent to a genuine reciprocity. He considered the question of an elective or hereditary emperor for life or for a term of years, but came to the conclusion that the preponderance of Prussia over the other German states was so great that the king of that country would carry off the prize, and that Germany as a whole would gain nothing from the revolution, except “that instead of thirty-four sovereign princes she would have thirty-five.” He pointed out that the composite character and dynastic interests of the Austria-Hungarian empire, and especially the opposition of the Slavonic leaders, would make it impracticable to incorporate any of the provinces of that empire into the new German Federation. He gives a brief but an interesting account of affairs at Vienna and in the Danubian provinces,