In 1849 Austria withdrew altogether and the King of Prussia was elected Emperor of Germany, but refused the honor on the ground that he could not accept the title from the people, but only from his equals. There followed riots and uprisings of the people in Prussia, Saxony, Baden, and elsewhere throughout Germany. The Prussian guards were sent to Dresden to quell the rioting there and took the city after two days' fighting. The parliament itself was dispersed and moved to Stuttgart, but there again they were dispersed, and the end was a flight of the liberals to Switzerland, France, and the United States. We in America profited by the coming of such valuable citizens as Carl Schurz and many others. There were driven from Germany, they and their descendants, many among our most valuable citizens. The descendant of one of the worthiest of them, Admiral Osterhaus, is one of the most respected officers in our navy, and will one day command it, and we could not be in safer hands. In 1849 the German Federal fleet was sold at auction as useless; Austria was again in the ascendant and German subjects in Schleswig were handed over to the Danes.
In 1850 both the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria called congresses, but Prussia finally gave up hers, and the ancient confederation as of before 1848 met as a diet at Frankfort and from 1851-1858 Bismarck was the Prussian delegate and Austria presided over the deliberations.
A factor that made for unity among the German states was the Zollverein. From 1818-1853 under the leadership of Prussia the various states were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between 1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau, Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover, and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King, or politics, or the army.
With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present political condition of the German Empire.
