The German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., provided a forum for presentation of an early version of this essay. Professors Mack Walker (The Johns Hopkins University), and Alison Olson (University of Maryland) read and criticized it as did Mary Ann Coyle, a graduate student in history at Maryland. Professor Hanna Schissler (University of Minnesota) helped with the translation of the Kohlgrub petition. My thanks to all.

1. Blackbourn, Dravid and Eley, Geoff, The Peculiarties of German History. Bourgeois Socity and Politics in Nineteenth Century Germany (Oxford and New York, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. White, Hayden, The Content of the Form. Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore and London, 1987), esp. 1–25.Google Scholar

3. This thesis holds that, unlike England and France, Germany modernized economically and technologically, but not politically. Among the proponents of this view were Thorsten Veblen, Max Weber, Alexander Gerschenkron, Hans Rosenberg, Ralf Dahrendorf, and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, to name only the most famous. For a critical view, see note 6 below.Google Scholar

4. Hamerow, Theodore S., Restoration, Revolution, Reaction. Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815‐1871 (Princeton, 1958), 260–61, 199f, 205, 214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Klessmann, Christoph, ‘Zur Sozialgeschichte der Reichsverfassungskampagne von 1849,’ Historische Zeitschrift 218 (1974): 283–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. In do not mean to exclude others; more specialized teratments will form part of the discussion below. Eley, and Blackbourn, . Peculiarities, e. g. 144f, 275ff, attack the Sonderweg thesis, but agree that the 1848 revolution failed. Their these is complex: they hold that what failed politically in 1848 succeeded in the 1860s and 1870s “from above” and that bourgeois revolutions were not really successful elsewhere either. Moreover, they prefer to talk about “bourgeois” rather than “liberal” revolutions, supstituting socioeconomic class for political party. In the process they either ignore the temporary and partial political victory of 1848 or conflate it with the failure of 1849. The enduring successes and changes of 1848 receive less treatment form the authors of Peculiarties than the more problematic changes of the 1860s and 1870s.Google Scholar

7. Craig, Gordon, The Germans (New York, 1982), 32–33.Google Scholar

8. Sheehan, James, German History 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1989), 590ff, 691–93, 703, 706ff, 709. Sheehan does deal with conservatives, like the Gerlachs, but in the context of the 1850s and as obsolete. One might question whether the liberal revolution really sought to represent the Volk and desired to “preserve” the individul states.Google Scholar

9. Nipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866. Bürgewelt und starker Staat (Munich, 1983), 663, 665–66, 668–70, 674, 732–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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11. ibid., 727–27, 775ff, 759ff, 441.

12. Wettengel, Michael, Die Revolution von 1848/49 im Rhein-Main-Raum. Politische Vereine und Revolutionsalltag im Grossherzogtum Hessen, Herzogtum Nassau und in der Freien Stadt Frankfurt (Wiesbaden, 1989), 219ff, 221, 229 for the interweaving of conservative and liberal ideas, programs, and people; 522ff, in a glossary of political labels current in these areas in 1848, Wettengel notes five that may be partially conservative, two that were partially liberal, four that were partially democratic and two that were socialist or communist.Google Scholar

13. Fischer, Hubertus, “Konservatismus von unten. Wahlen im ländliche Preuessen 1849/52” in Stegmann, Dirk et al. , eds., Deutscher Konservatismus im 19. und 20 Jahrhundert (Bonn, 1983). Fischer describes the frustration of popular conservative forces by those “above” as so often in Prussian history. Bavaria appers little different in this regard.Google Scholar Dieter Langewiesche, “Forschungsstant und Forschungsperspekiven,” 459, notes 5 note that conservative development in the revolution has been given too little attention, but, p. 448, esp. note 34, sees W. Siemann's attempt to portray the Casino Fraktion in the Paulskirche as “reform conservative“ as exciting but overdrawn. See Siemann, Wolfram, Der “Polizeiverein” deutscher Staaten. Eine Dokumentation zur Überwachung der Öffentlichkeit nach der Revolution von 1848/49 (Tübingen, 1983).Google ScholarEley, Geoff argues in new introduction to his Reshaping the German Right. Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1991), XV, that German society modernzied in the 1890s as exemplified politically by the radical nationalists. And see the treatment by Wolfgang Schwentker, below notes 63, 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Agulhon, Maurice, The Republic in the Village. The people of the Var from the French Revolution to the Second republic, trans. Lloyd, Janet (cambridge, London & New York, 1982), 303–4, noting the continutaion of old castoms in as area that had become politically democratic in 1848, reminds us that contradictions frequently are found in reality.Google Scholar David Sabean's mounmental work on Neckarhausen in Württemberg markes the same point with the emphasis on customs rather than politics; see his property, production and Family in Neckarhausen, 1700–1870 (New York, 1991).Google Scholar

15. Walker, Mack, German Home Towns. Community, State, and General Estate: 1648–1871 (Ithaca & London, 1971), 345–404, esp. 388, 405–17, 425–26; the quotation “Death and Transfiguration” is the title of the last chapter.Google Scholar

16. Landtagsarchiv [LA], München [M] J3–A, J3–B, box 867, fascicles 1–6, no. 231 “gegen.” The petitions were numbered separately for (für )and against (gegen) by a collator and I have kept those numbers with corrections as necessary.

17. Material for this section aslo comes from the collection cited in note 6 above.

18. LA, J3–A, fasc. 3, G–K againts.

19. Kirzi, Gernot, Staat und Kirche im bayerischen Landtag zur Zeit Max II (1848–1864) (Munich, 1974), 104f.Google Scholar For example, Botzenhart, Manfred, Deutscher Parlamentarismus in der Revolutionszeit 1848–1850 (Düsseldorf, 1977), 397–98, based his brief description on the 1920 articles by Anton Doeberl who, in turn, used a few newspaper soureces.Google Scholar See Doeberl, Anton, “Die katholische Bewegugng in Bayern in den Jahren 1848 and 1849,“ Historischpolitische, Blätter für das katholische Deutschland 170 (1922): no 1, 7–17, no. 2, 65–70, no. 4, 211–22, no. 5, 249–59, no. 8, 429–45, and no. 9, 494–503.Google ScholarValentin, Veit, Geschichte der deutschen Revolution 1848–1849, 2, vols. (Aalen, 1968, reprint of the Berlin 1930–1931 edition), 2:668, note 153,Google Scholar cites Graf Degenfeld's report of 8 March 1849 to Stuttgart for a terse description of the petitions, but much of the information is inacurate. For an excllent review of recent work on German Catholicism. see Anderson, Margaret Lavini., “Piety and Politics: Recent Work on German Catholicism,” Journal of Morden History 63, no. 412., 1991): 681–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Kirzl, , Staat und Kirche, 105, notes the predominace of concern for these clauses. Walker, Home Towns, 365, note 29, used some of these petitions retained in the files of the Ministry of Commerce.Google Scholar

21. No, 138 againts; “From the state we require only protection and that in full measure!” See note 16.

22. No.145 againts.

23. No. 124 againts.

24. No. 497 againts.

25. No. 231 againts. and see note 16 above.

26. No 268 against.

27. No 443 against.

28. Harris, James F., “Arms and the people: The Bürgerwehr of Lower Franconia in 1848 and 1849” in Jarausch, K. and Jones, L. E., In Search of A Liberal Germany (Berg, 1990), 133–60.Google Scholar

29. ibid.

30. Roeder, Elmar, Der Konservative Journalist Ernst Zander und die politischen Kämpfe seines Volksboten (Munich, 1917);Google Scholar for Pfordten and Maximilian II, see Harris, James F., The people Speak! Anti-semitism and Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Bavaria (Ann Abor, Mich., 1993, forthcomming);Google Scholar for Maximilian II, see Hesse, Horst, Die sogenannte Sozialgesetzgebung Bayerns. Ende der sechziger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts, Ein Beitrag zur Strukturanalyes der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Munich, 1971)Google Scholar and Günther, Müller, König Max II. und die Soziale Frage (Munich, 1964).Google Scholar

31. As seen in the decrisions on the Bürgerwehr, in Harris, “Arms and the people,” and Siemann, Der “Poliszerverein.”

32. Simon, Marfred, Handwerk in Krise und Umbruh. Wirtschaftliche Forerungen und Sozialpolitische Vorstellungen der Handwerkmeister im Revolutionsjahr 1848/49 (Cologne/Vienna, 1983), 101.Google Scholar For an interesting early study, see Repgen, Konrad, “Klerus und politik 1848. Die Kölner Geistlichen im politischen Leben des Revolutionsjahres—Als Beitrag zu einer ‘Parteigeschichte von Unten,’” in Braubach, Max et al. , eds., Aus Geschichte und Landeskunde. Froschungen und Darstellungen (Bonn, 1960), 133–65.Google Scholar

33. In Bavaria, 1,135 discrete petitions from spring 1849 are in the LA, Munich; more than 550 on Jewish emancipation are in the Hauptstaatsarachiv, Munich; more may be found in the Landtagsarchiv as well as in the holdings of the ministries, the royal archives, the Reichsräthe and the Lower House. Shorter, Edward, “Middle Class Anxiety in the German Revolution of 1848,” Journal of Social History 2, no. 3 (Spring 1969): 189–215, using similar materials from as essay contest of 1848, concluded that revolutionaries in parliament denied themseves the strength to be gained from a popuar movement, some of which was conservative.Google Scholar

34. Totals of those for and against the Grundrechte expanded substantially upon closer study; for examble, Representative Kaehl in Würzburg received 100 petitions for the Constitution in late spring 1849, but merely forwarded to the sixth committee a list of those communities and a gross total of 8,000 signatures; LA, Mü, J3–A, J3–B, no. 531 for; see note 16.

35. Best, Heinrich, Interessenpolitik und nationale Integration 1848/49. Handelspolitische Konflikte im frühindustriellen Deutschland (Göttingen, 1980) counts each community as a separate petition, such that 3,775 petitions (reflecting the discrete communities submitting them) derived from 670 submissions. See Simon, Handwerk, 102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Gailus, Manfred, “Soziale Protestbewegungen in Deutschland 1847–1849” in Volkmann, Heinrich and Jürgen, Bergmann, eds, Sozialer Protest. Studien zu traditioneller Resistenz und kollektiver Gewalt in Deutschland vom Vormärz bis zur Reichsgründung (Opladen, 1984), 76–106 (here, 88–89).Google Scholar

37. Eyck, Frank, The Frankfurt parliament, 1848–1849 (1968) provides a slightly out-of-date but good idea of the work on parlimentsGoogle Scholar. Gebhardt, Hartwig, Revolution und liberale Bewegung. Die nationale Organisation der konstitutionellen Partei in Deutschland 1848/49 (Bremen, 1974)Google Scholar and Paschen, Joachim, Demokratische Vereine und preussischer Staat. Entwicklung und Unterdrückuckung der demokratischen Bewegung während der Revolution von 1848/49 (Munich and Vienna, 1977) are good exambles of work on direct action. Valentin, Geschichte depended heavily on diplomatic reports.Google Scholar

38. Recent uses of petitions include that of H. Best and M. Simon, notes 35 and 32 above, and G. Kirzl and K. Tenfelde, notes 19 above and 39 below. Also see Kumpf, Johann Heinric., Petitionsrecht und öffentliche Meinung im Entstehungsprozess der paulskirchenverfassung 1848/49 (Frankfurt am Main, Bern, New York, 1983)Google Scholar and Hoffmann, Donald H., Das Petitionsrecht (Frankfut am Main, 1959);Google ScholarSilemann, Wolfram, “Soziale Protestbewegungen in der deutschen Revolution von 1848/49,” in Helmut Reinlter, ed., Demokratische Protestbewegungen in Mitteleuropa 1815–1848/49, 320–21 discusses the prevasive nature of petitions as a from of protest.Google Scholar

39. Tenfelde, Klaus and Trischler, Helmuth, eds., Bis vor die Stufen des Throns. Bittschriften und Beschwerden von Bergleuten im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung (Munich, 1986), 9–13. The Eichendorf petition is in LA, J3–A, no. 107, against, dated 15 February 1849.Google Scholar

40. Fully 87 percent of the total came from communties while 93 precent of those opposing the Basic Rights did so.

41. “Bevölkerung des Königreiche Bayern nach Alter und Geschlecht, Familienverhältnissen, Religionsbekenntnissen, Erwerbsarten und Ständern, dann Zahl und Bestimmung der Gebäude, auf Grund der Aufnahme vom Dezember 1852,” bound with Beiträge zur Statistik des Königreichs Bayern (Munich, 1850).Google Scholar

42. Noramally only male citizens, householders, or heads of family signed and women were excluded. In the petition from Eichendorf, note 9, the names of eight females were struck out and not cluded in the numerical total of singnatures: two were entered simply as names, four appeared with the feminie from of various Stände, one as a window, and one as a widow of a cloth shearer.

43. Described in reports froms communal mayors and District Directors in Unterfranken during the petition campaingn against Jewish Emancipation in 1849–1850 in Harris, The People Speak!, chap. 5; aslo, Blessing, Werner K., “Zur Analyse politischer Mentalität und Ideologie der Unterschichten im 19. Jahrhundert. Aspekte, Methoden und Quellen am bayrischen Beispiel,” Zeitschrift für bayeriche Landesgeschichte 34, no. 3 (1971): 768–816Google Scholarand “Allgemeine Volksbildung und politische Indoktrination im bayerischen Vormärz. Das Letibild des Volksschullehrers als mentales Herrschaftsinstrument,” in ZBL, 37, no. 2 (1974): 479–568.Google Scholar

44. Alzenau, , Ufr, 8 March 1849, no. 36 against; Eichendorf, n. 39 above; Kirchdorf, Pfaundorf and Resichenhart, Ob, 18 February 1849, no. 223–B against.Google Scholar

45. Roeder, Zander describes Zander's life, but not his anti-Semitic activities; for the latter see Harris, The People Speak!, chap. 4; the interactive nature of public poinion is discussed in Noelle-Neumann, Elizabeth, Spiral of Silience. public Opinion—Our Social Skin (Chicago and London, 1984).Google Scholar

46. The Offene Zuschrift, discusses below, received wide distribution in the press and as a brochure, as did similar position on the Left.

47. Huber, Ernst Rudol., Dokumente zur deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1961), 1:317–23.Google Scholar

48. Discussed above, 11ff.

49. Langewiesche, Dieter, “Die politische Vereinsbewegung in Würzburg und in Unterfranken in den Revolutionsjahren 1848/49,” Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung 37 (1977): 195–233, esp. 217 for the ephemeral character of most political clubs in Unterfranken.Google Scholar

50. Best, note 35 above; for a critique of Best's work on petitions from this standpoint, see Langeswiesche, “Forschungsstand und Forschugsperspektiven,” 458–98, esp. 489–92.

51. Sabean, David, “The Communal Basis of Pre-1800 peasant Uprisings in Western Europe,” Comparative Politics 8, no. 3 (1976): 355–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Kaschuba, Wolfgang and Lipp, Carola, Dörfliches Überleben. Zur Geschichte materieller und sozialer Reproduktion ländlicher Gesellschaft im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Tübingen, 1982);Google ScholarKaschuba, Wolfgang, Volkskultur zwischen feudaler und bürgerlicher Geselschaft: zur Geschichte eines Begriffs und seiner geselschaftlichen Wirklichkeit (Frankfurt, 1988).Google Scholar See Harris, , The People Speak!, for dissent.Google Scholar

52. Simon, Handwerk, 109–111, based only on petitions sent to the Paulskirche, many of which are on longer extant, shows that petitions in general peaked in March 1849, while petitions on trade peaked in December 1848 and those relating to crafts did so earlier in September.

53. Hamerow, Restoration, is the classic statement of this thesis, but it is evident in the quotations froms Sheehan and Wehler above. Also, Walker, Home Towns, 364.Google Scholar

54. Rupieper, Hermann-Josef, “Die Sozialstruktur der Trägerschichten der Revolution von 1848/49 am Beispiel Sachsen,” in Kaelble, H. et al. , Probleme der Modenisierung in Deutschland. Sozialhistorische Studien zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Opladen, 1978), 80–109.Google Scholar See esp. notes 21–22, 88–89 for similar studies. Also see Thamer, Hans-Ulrich, “Emanzipation und Tradition. Zur Idden- und Sozialgeschichte von Liberalismus und Handwerk in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Schieder, Wolfgang, ed., Liberalismus in der Gesellschaft des deutschen Vormärz (Göttigen, 1983), 55–73, esp. 66–73, arguing for the stroung ties between artisanas and liberals while recognizing substantial divergences.Google Scholar In the same volem see W. Schieder, “probelme einer Sozialgeschichte des frühen Liberalismus in Deutschland,” 9–21, and Günter Birtsch, “Gemässigter Libertlismus und Grudrechte Zur Traditionsbestimmtheit des deutschen Liberalisumus von 1848/49,” 22–38. Mommsen, Wolfgang, “Der deustsche Liberalismus zwisches ‘Klassenloser Bürgergesellschaft’ und Organisiertem Kapitalismus. Zu einigen Neueren Liberalismusinterpretationen,” in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 4 (1978): 77–90.Google Scholar

55. ibid., 89, 103–05. Criminal arrest during a period of revolutionary activity does not necessarily mean that the arrested person was a revolutionary any more than did election to the Frankfurt Parliament.

56. Volkov, Shulamit, The Rise of Popular Anti-Modernism in Germany. The Urban Master Artisans, 1873–1896 (Princeton, 1978), 4–5 and esp. 20ff;Google ScholarRupieper, , “Die Sozialstruktur,” 91ff and the notes to these pages for literature on rural activity in 1848–1849.Google Scholar

57. Lautenschläger, Friedrich, Die Agrarunruhen in den badischen Standes- und Grundherrschaften im Jahre 1848 (Heidelberg, 1915), 41–43, 49–50, 52 and Günther Franz, “Die agrarische Bewegung im Jahre 1848,” in Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie (1959): 176–93.Google Scholar

58. Gailus, Manfred, “Zur Politisierung der Landbevölkerung in der Märzbewegung von 1848,” in Steinbach, Peter, ed., Probleme politischer Partizipation im Modernisierungsprozess (Stuttgart, 1982): 88–113,Google Scholar and Wirtz, Rainer, “Die Begriffsverwirrung der Bauern im Odenwald 1848. Odenwälder ‘Exzesse’ und die Sinsheimer ‘republikanische Schilderhebung,‘” in Detley, Püls, ed., Wahrnehmungsformen und Protestverhalten. studien zur Lage der Unterschichten im 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1972), 81–104.Google Scholar

59. This is part of a larger tendency, derived from George Rudé and Eric Hobswm, that implies that direct action, especilly when political, is democratic. See Hobsbawm, Eric, Captain Swing (New York, 1968)Google Scholar and Premitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Manchester, 1971);Google ScholarRudè, George, The Crowd in French Revolution (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar and The Crowd in Histroy (New York, 1964).Google Scholar More recently, Laclau, Ernesto, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory. Capitalism— Fascism—Populism (London, 1977), 108–09, asserts the fundamental popular-democratic nature ofall class struggles at the ideological level. Eley's treatment of populism in the 1890s in the new introduction to his Reshaping the German Right, xxi–xxiii, is apropos to this discussion and his bibligraphical notes are very helpful.Google Scholar

60. Latuenschläger, , Die Agrarunruhen, 42–43Google Scholar; Berding, Helmut, Moderner Antisemitismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 74;Google ScholarErb, Rainer and Bergmann, Werner, Die Nachtseite der Judenemanzipation. Der Widerstand gegen die Integration der Juden in Deutschland 1780–1860 (Berlin, 1989), 257, n. 128;Google ScholarPreissler, Dietmar, Frühantisemitismus in der Freien Stadt Frankfurt und im Grossherzgtum Hessen (1810 bis 1860) (Heidelberg, 1989), 354ff.Google Scholar

61. Gailus, , “Politisierung,” 94; Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte, 251.Google Scholar An opposite interpretation is that of Rose, Paul Lawrenc., Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (princeton, 1990), 13, who argues that “German revolutionism was therefore embedded in a pattern of thought that was essentially racial and politically anti-Jewish.”Google ScholarSee my critical review of his work in the American Historical Review, 97, no. 2 (04, 1992): 571–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Of coures Stand is not equivalent to “occupation,” but at the village level it is nearly the same.

63. Sperber, Jonathan, Rhineland Radicals, The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848–1849 (Princeton, 1991), 438ff, 452ff, 483f.Google Scholar and Schwentker, Wolfgang, Konsevative Vereine und Revolution in Preussen 1848/49. Die Konstituierung des Konservatismus als Partei (Düsseldorf, 1988), 320, 340.Google Scholar

64. Harris, James F., “Public Opinion and the Proposed Emancipation of the Jews in Bavaria in 1849–50,” in Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 34 (1989): 67–79 and idem, The People Speak!CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65. Langewiesche, , “Die politische Vereinsbewegung,” 195–233.Google Scholar

66. Schwentker, Konservative Vereine, 318, 327ff, 329, 340. For the Old Conservatives see Berdahl, Robert M., The Politics of the Prussian Nobility. The Developement of a live Ideology, 1770–1848 (Princeton, 1990).Google Scholar

67. Thränhardt, Dietrich, Wahlen und politische Strukturen in Bayern in Bayern 1848–1953. Historischsoziologische Untersuchugen zum Entstehen und zur Neuerrichtung eines Parteienstemes (Düsseldeorf, 1973), 48ff.Google Scholar

68. Sperber, , Rhineland Radicals, 440ff and 449ff; 481.Google Scholar

69. ibid., 483f. In his earlier work, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Princeton, 1984), 47ff and 285ff and passim, Sperber documents a complex set of Catholic political attitudes on both left and right.Google Scholar

70. For examble, Hamerow, , Restoration, 193, 261.Google Scholar

71. Walker, Mack, Home Towns, is an excellent examble of a history which exposes a large part of the Bavarian milieu in which popular conservatism germinated.Google Scholar