Amtshauptmann

“ Friedrich came and the Bailiff too.
"Was it you, Friedrich, who threw the Frenchman out of the waggon?"
Friedrich thought to himself--"What? Is another court of justice going to be held?" And since he must needs answer the Amtshauptmann's question with a "yes," he planted himself firmly, with one leg advanced, and stood ready prepared for whatever might come: "Yes, Herr Amtshauptmann," said he.
"And are you aware that you have brought the Miller into great trouble?"
"Trouble? He's pretty well used to troubles, and one more won't hurt him." ”

“ The latter lay stretched on the sofa, arrayed in the Herr Amtshauptmann's white cotton nightcap and flowered dressing-gown; and the rogue of a Miller had given him, instead of his sword, a long quill pen, which he silently waved about in the air, for he could not speak a word.
When Mamsell Westphalen got to the door and beheld this spectacle, she set her arms a-kimbo, as every right-thinking elderly person would naturally do under such circumstances, and asked: "Miller Voss, what is this? What do you call this? What do you mean by this?" ”

“ At last he stood still in front of Friedrich, and looked at him with a peculiar look in his eyes: "Money is very scarce just now, and I know where there is a father of a family wringing the very skin off his fingers, and his wife and child sit in tears."
Friedrich looked up. He looked into the Amtshauptmann's face, and it seemed to him as if a beam of light came from it and fell warmly upon his heart.
"Dumouriez!" he cried and he snatched up the valise and put it under his arm.--"I know what to do with it," he said, "Good-day, Herr." ”

“ Their only son, Joe, was abroad, and so the two old people were thrown together quite alone in the great old castle, and faithfully and honestly they shared their griefs and joys together; and if ever time began to seem long, it always so chanced that the Herr Amtshauptmann would, at the right time, take up some wonderful new whim, and the yawning would be changed into a sun-shower which freshened up their love again; for it is with love as with a tree--the more the wind blows in its top and branches, the faster it throws out roots. ”

“ Mamsell Westphalen had taken me on her lap, and, while the tears were rolling down my face, she gave me delightful descriptions of the apples I should have, and this did its work. A child's heart is soon consoled; the tree requires heavy rain, but a drop of dew refreshes the blade of grass.
The first burst of grief was over, when Luth, the town-messenger, came in, and told the Herr Amtshauptmann that Miller Voss's Fieka was outside, and wished to speak a few words to him. ”

“ As the Miller was beginning to fume because Friedrich did not come, his wife said: "Father, never mind him; you are tired and wearied with the jolting of the waggon--come to bed; Fieka shall warm a little beer for you to drive out the night air."
"Mother," he answered, "you're right as usual, I am dreadfully tired, for money business is so wearying. Well, it's in order now--as good as in order at least--for the Herr Amtshauptmann said: 'Miller Voss, I shall not forget you.' I must be in again at Stemhagen early to-morrow morning." ”

“ Are officials in your country appointed only to fleece people? Don't you stand by them when they are in difficulties and in the right? And is it not right for one to rid oneself of a rogue and vagabond by a few bottles of wine?"
Well, here was another hard hit for the French judge. "Rogue and vagabond" and a French chasseur were things that could in no way be coupled together, or rather should not be. The judge burst out in a torrent of invective.
The Herr Amtshauptmann remained unmoved, but went to the table and drew out of the Frenchman's valise one of the silver spoons. ”

“ Under no circumstances could I any longer submit to the thankless rôle of Minister-President of Prussia in a Ministry with joint responsibility, if I were not accustomed, from my old affection, to submit to the wishes of my King and Master. So thankless, so powerless, and so little responsible is that position; one can only be responsible for that which one does of one's own will; a board is responsible for nothing. ”

“ Should the Federal Government have left office, the Federal President shall entrust members of the outgoing Government or senior civil servants of the Federal departments with continuation of the administration and one of them with the chairmanship of the provisional Federal Government until the formation of the new Federal Government. ”

“ In every modern State there is a Council formed of the heads of different administrative departments; this was so universal that it was supposed to be essential to a constitution. In the German Empire we search for it in vain; there is only one responsible Minister, and he is the Chancellor, the representative of Prussia and Chairman of the Council. ”

“ When a decree of the President is countersigned by a Minister it may be considered that the Cabinet holds it to be a purely administrative matter. Every decision presenting a certain political importance is either countersigned by the Chancellor only or by both the Chancellor and the Minister whose department is affected. The Ministers have in the second place their own powers. They make general or individual decisions which they sign themselves. ”

“ When such delinquencies are adjudged sufficiently serious, the Emperor may bring them to the attention of the Bundesrath, and that body may order an "execution," i.e., a show of military force to coerce the erring state. The carrying out of the "execution" is intrusted to the Emperor. [306] Incident to the general executive function is the power to make appointments. By the constitution it is stipulated that the Emperor, in addition to appointing the Imperial Chancellor, shall appoint Imperial officials, require of them the taking of an oath to the Empire, and, when necessary, dismiss them. ”

“ This standing Council of the Empire was to be formed of a President, one Elector, one Bishop, one Prince, one Count, and sixteen representatives of the States. It was to summon the Diet, of which it served as a standing committee, to nominate the members of the Imperial Chamber, to collect taxes, to maintain order at home, and decide on questions of peace and war. Although under the presidency of the Emperor or his Stadtholder, nothing of importance could be done without its leave, and thus it shared the executive power with him. ”

“ Since that time this Order had governed the relations of the Minister President to the Ministry of State, and through it alone the Minister President was invested with the authority which enabled him to assume that degree of responsibility for the policy of the Cabinet as a whole which was attributed to him in the Diet and by public opinion. If each individual Minister can receive commands from the Sovereign without previous arrangement with his colleagues, a coherent policy in the Cabinet, for which some one is to be responsible, is an impossibility. ”

“ It has long been felt, and particularly during the past few years, that the present system of two cabinets—one of which is nominally responsible to the Reichstag and public opinion, while the other is merely a personal cabinet, responsible to neither, and yet exercising an enormous influence in shaping the monarch's policies—has been growing more and more intolerable. ”

“ The preliminary decision, then, which may be taken as settled—for the other party if it had been in power would certainly have come to the same conclusion—is that no military officer, either within or without the Cabinet, is to have in his hands the whole management of the army; the absolute power of the Cabinet must be preserved, and therefore no military officer is to have more than departmental authority; the threads are not to be united in any hands other than those of the Secretary of State. ”

“ Bismarck, as always, refused to appoint ministers directly responsible either to the emperor or to parliament; the new officials in no way formed a collegiate ministry or cabinet. He still retained in his own hands, as sole responsible minister, the ultimate control over the whole imperial administration. The more important secretaries of state, however, are political officials, who are practically almost solely responsible for their department; they sit in the Bundesrat, and defend their policy in the Reichstag, and they often have a seat in the Prussian ministry. ”

“ If the chancellorship is without a counterpart among modern governments, no less so is the Federal Council, or Bundesrath. No feature of the German political system is more extraordinary; none, as one writer has observed, is more thoroughly native. [316] It is not an "upper house," nor even, in the ordinary sense, a deliberative chamber at all. On the contrary, it is the central institution of the whole Imperial system, and as such it is possessed of a broad combination of functions which are not only legislative, but administrative, consultative, judicial, and diplomatic. ”

“ It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet—a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. ”

“ In the event of the President's death, incapacitation, or resignation, the Council is authorized to act as head of the state until the National Assembly shall have chosen a successor. As a cabinet the ministers formulate the fundamental policies of the Government and represent it in the chambers. The Council is administrative and is expressly recognized by law; the Cabinet is political and is not so recognized. In the meetings of the Council the President of the Republic not only sits, but presides; in those of the Cabinet he rarely even appears. ”

“ The ministers are severally controlled by, and responsible to, the crown, and the views or policies of one need not at all be those of another. At the same time, of course, in the interest of efficiency it is desirable that there shall be a certain amount of unity and of concerted action. To attain this there was established by Count Hardenberg a Staats-Ministerium, or Ministry of State, which occupies in the Prussian executive system a position somewhat similar to that occupied in the French by the Council of Ministers. ”

“ It was decided ... that a provisional central executive should be created in the place of the Diet, and created, not by the National Assembly in concert with the princes, but by the National Assembly alone. June 27th, following out the bold conception of its president, the assembly decided to appoint an irresponsible administrator, with a responsible ministry; and June 29th, Archduke John of Austria was chosen Administrator of Germany by 436 votes out of 546. He made his entry into Frankfort July 11th, and entered upon his office on the following day. ”

“ Votes for the appropriation of the revenue shall not pass unless recommended by the governor-general. The constitution provides means for the settlement of disputes between the houses, and requires the assent of the sovereign to all laws. The executive power is vested in the governor-general, assisted by an executive council appointed by himself. He has command of the army and navy, and appoints federal ministers and judges. The ministers are members of the executive council, and must be, or within three months of their appointment must become, members of the parliament. ”

“ Should a Federal Minister be temporarily prevented from discharging his responsibilities, the Federal President entrusts one of the other Federal Ministers or a senior civil servant of a Federal department to deputize for the Minister. ”

“ Every monarch appoints Ministers, but there is scarcely an instance in recent times of a monarch retaining and protecting his Prime Minister, against every kind of hostility and intrigue, during twenty-five long years of vicissitudes, when not every measure succeeds. During this lapse of time, I have seen many former friends change into opponents, but your Majesty’s favour and confidence in me has remained immutably the same. ”

“ For the success of these institutions, we must suppose a sufficiently firm political education and intelligence, a public that knows its wishes and how to make them prevail, a Parliament and a Cabinet skilled in recognizing the wishes of the nation and ready to submit to them. Because of the mistrust of parliamentarism, it has been decided that the President shall be elected directly by the people. He is endowed with power by the nation and placed near to the Reichstag in order to control it. ”

“ To those days also the reformers went for models of ministerial organisation. They formed a government consisting of seven departments,—religion, home affairs, foreign affairs, finance, army and navy, justice and law,—and at its head they placed a premier, who must be an Imperial Prince, and a vice-premier, the Cabinet being assisted by a body of eighteen councillors, who, including in their ranks the most active spirits of the revolution, exercised great influence. ”

“ But the prince-president of the ministers and chancellor of the empire was loaded down with duties--in his cabinet, in his office, and in the parliament--most onerous to bear, and which no other man in Germany was equal to. His burdens at times were intolerable: his labors were prodigious, and the opposition he met with was extremely irritating to a man accustomed to have his own way in everything. ”