The Congress of Vienna reassembled, and the readjustment of the map of Europe began over again. Prussia is given back what had been taken away from her. A German confederation was formed in 1815 to resist encroachments, but with no definite political idea, and its diet, to which Prussia, Austria, and the other smaller states sent representatives, became the laughing-stock of Europe. Jealous bickerings and insistence upon silly formalities paralyzed legislation. Lawyers and others who presented their claims before this assembly from 1806-1816 were paid in 1843! The liquidation of the debts of the Thirty Years' War was made after two hundred years, in 1850! The laws for the military forces were finally agreed upon in 1821, and put in force in 1840!
There were three principal forms of government among these states: first, Absolutist, where the ruler and his officials governed without reference to the people, as in Prussia and Austria; second, those who organized assemblies (Landslände), where no promises were made to the people, but where the nobles and notables were called together for consultation; and third, a sort of constitutional monarchy with a written constitution and elected representatives, but with the ruler none the less supreme. One of the first rulers to grant such a constitution to his people was the Grand Duke who presided over the little court at Weimar.
The mass of the people were wholly indifferent. The intellectuals were divided among themselves. The schools and universities after 1818 form associations and societies, the Burschenschaft, for example, and in a hazy professorial fashion talk and shout of freedom. They were of those passionate lovers of liberty, more intent on the dower than on the bride; willing to talk and sing and to tell the world of their own deserts, but with little iron in their blood.
When a real man wants to be free he fights, he does not talk; he takes what he wants and asks for it afterward; he spends himself first and affords it afterward. These dreamy gentlemen could never make the connection between their assertions and their actions. They were as inconsistent, as a man who sees nothing unreasonable in circulating ascetic opinions and a perambulator at the same time. They were dreary and technical advocates of liberty.