1. Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (hereafter HAStK), rep. 1023, L488a.

2. This article centers on the New Era in Prussia, but the term New Era is also applied to political developments in southern Germany and Austria. See Langewiesche, Dieter, Liberalismus in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1988), 85–93;Google ScholarSheehan, James J., German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford, 1989), 869–75.Google Scholar

3. Böhme, Helmut, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht: Studien zum Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Staat während der Reichsgründungszeit 1848–1881 (Cologne, 1972, 2d ed), 83 ff.Google Scholar

4. Zunkel, Friedrich, Der Rheinisch-Westfälische Unternehmer 1834–1879 (Cologne, 1962), 182–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Hamerow, Theodore S., Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815–1871 (Princeton, 1958), 238–55;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHamerow, , The Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858–1871: Ideas and Institutions (Princeton, 1969) 3–180;Google ScholarHamerow, , The Social Foundations of German Unification: Struggles and Accomplishments (Princeton, 1972), 3–148.Google Scholar

6. See, for example, Jaeger, Hans, Geschichte der Wirtschaftsordnung in Deutschland (Frankfurt, 1988);Google ScholarKiesewetter, Hubert, Industrielle Revolution in Deutschland 1815–1914 (Frankfurt, 1989);Google ScholarTreue, Wilhelm, Gebhardt Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte, vol. 17, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Technik Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1970);Google ScholarHenderson, W. O., The Rise of German Industrial Power, 1834–1914 (Berkeley, 1975);Google ScholarMommsen, Wolfgang J., Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat 1850–1890 (Berlin, 1993); Sheehan, German History.Google Scholar

7. The depression of 1857–59 and its ramifications for high finance as well as the entwined interests of business and government in heavy industry are two important elements of the German political economy during the New Era that cannot be addressed here.

8. For broader revisions of the nineteenth-century German bourgeoisie (which have yet to coalesce into a consensus), see Eley, Geoff and Blackbourn, David, Peculiarities of German History (New York, 1984);Google Scholar Jürgen Kocka, “Bürgertum und bürgerliche Gesellschaft im 19. Jahrhundert: Europäische Entwicklungen und deutsche Eigernarten,” in Bürgertum im 19. Jahrhundert: Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich, ed. idem, vol. 1 (Munich, 1988); Kocka, J., “Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit als Probleme der deutschen Geschichte vom späten 18. zum frühen 20. Jahrhundert,” in Bürger und Bügerlichkeitim 19. Jahrhundert ed. Kocka (Göttingen, 1987);Google ScholarPuhle, Hans-Jürgen, ed., Bürger in der Gesells chaft der Neuzeit: Wirtschaft-Politik-Kultur (Göttingen, 1991);Google ScholarSiemann, Wolfram, Gesellschaft im Aufbruch: Deutschland 1849–71 (Frankfurt, 1990);Google ScholarNipperdey, Thomas, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat (Munich, 1987).Google Scholar For new research on businessmen in Prussia after 1848, see Padtberg, Beate-Carola, Rheinischer Liberalismus in Köln während der politischen Reaktion in Preussen nach 1848/49 (Cologne, 1985);Google ScholarBrophy, James M., “The Political Calculus of Capital: Banking and the Business Class in Prussia, 1848–56,” Central European History 25, no. 2 (1992): 149–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Rosenberg's, Hans two-volume work, Die Nationalpolitische Publizistik Deutschlands:Vom Eintritt der Neuen Aera in Preussen bis zum Ausbruch des deutschen Krieges (Munich, 1935), does not include commentary of businessmen and economic newspapers, giving the misleading impression that businessmen were silent during this period. As the historian of the 1857 depression and the 1873 crash, Rosenberg's omissions are surprising.Google Scholar

10. See, for example, the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung (henceforth BBZ) 7 November 1858, no. 562, p. 2327; 8 November 1858, no. 564, p. 2333; 9 November 1858, no. 566, p. 2343; 10 November 1858, no. 568, p. 2351; 13 November 1858, no. 573, p. 2371; 1 December 1858, no. 606, p. 2507–8; 21 December 1858, no. 643, p. 2663; Ludolf to Otto Camphausen, 3 and 5 August 1858, HAStK, rep. 1023, L481, L482; D. Hansemann to G.Mevissen, 9 November 1858, HAStK 1073, no. 116, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

11. BBZ, 4 November 1858.

12. Ibid.

13. For petitions to discharge Heydt, see 12 December 1858 letter of Geheim Justizrat Schmaling (Naumburg an der Saale) to Fürst Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen regarding the 21 October 1858 petition of the Upper Silesian Railway investors and directors to dismiss Heydt. Geheimes Staatsarchiv (hereafter GStA) Merseburg, Rep. 90a K. III. 3. no. 14. vol. I, 304; for the request of Rhenish and Westphalian businessmen to urge the dismissal of Heydt, see BBZ, 13 November 1858, p. 2371. A petition from Westphalian entrepreneurs supporting Heydt was also submitted, but the editors noted that “these views do not find resonance in the wider majority of industrial and commercial circles.”

14. H. F. L. Augustin, Das Preussische Handels-Ministerium in seinem Verhältnisse zu den Privat-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaften (Potsdam, 1859); and idem, Preussische Finanzfragen (Potsdam, 1859). Augustin's attack on the trade ministry appeared in two newspapers in 1859: Preussische Zeitung, nos. 174, 176,190, 192,234, and 236; and the BBZ, nos. 218, 220, 224. The latter gave glowing reviews of Augustin's essays: 25 March 1859, no. 142, 591; and 16 April 1859, no. 180, 745. The essays received a long reply from Heydt, which was published in the Preussische Zeitung in 1859, and can be found in GStA Merseburg, 93E, no. 562, n.p.

15. Augustin, H. F. L., Handels-Ministerium, 10. The BBZ also criticized the legal framework of Heydt's railroad commissions, whose authority overstepped regulatory procedures and was not checked by any judicial review. 4 June 1859, 902–3.Google Scholar

16. Reichenheim, Leonor, Das preussische Handelsministerium und die Gewerbefreiheit (Berlin, 1860); Reichenheim's views were heartily endorsed in the liberal press; see “Die Handelsminister und die Gewerbefreiheit,” National Zeitung (hereafter NZ), 17 and 20 August 1860.Google Scholar

17. Hansemann, D. to Mevissen, G., 9 November 1858, HAStK, 1073, no. 116, p. 78.Google Scholar

18. See, for example, Boch's, RudolfGrenzenloses Wachstum? Das rheinische Wirtschaftsbürgertum und seine Industrialisierungsdebatte 1814–1857 (Göttingen, 1991), 268, which asserts that Prussian businessmen ceased to be a politically competent class after 1848 whose industrial program was carried out by the government under Heydt.Google Scholar

19. See, for example, the BBZ 7 November 1858, no. 562, p. 2327; 9 November 1858, no. 566, p. 2343; 10 November 1858, no. 568, p. 2351; 13 November 1858, no. 573, p. 2371; 1 Dec. 1858, no. 606, pp. 2507–8; 21 Dec. 1858, no. 643, p. 2663. See also the correspondence between Ludolf and Otto Camphausen, 3 and 5 August 1858, HAStK, rep. 1023, L481, L482.Google Scholar

20. Otto, to Camphausen, Ludolf, 19 March 1862, HAStK, rep. 1023, L 657.Google Scholar

21. Otto, to Ludolf, , 12 May 1862, HAStK, 1023, L664.Google Scholar

22. Otto, to Ludolf, , 12 May 1862, HAStK, rep. 1023, L664.Google Scholar

23. “Der preussische Landtag von 1863,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 3, no. 103 (1863): 124ff; Bergengrün, Alexander, Staatsminister August Freiherr von der Heydt (Leipzig, 1908), 290.Google Scholar

24. Heydt, to Mevissen, , 30 January 1863, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 157, n.p. The original:“Ich bin in der Politik verbraucht.”Google Scholar

25. Schulthess, Heinrich, ed., Europäischer Geschichtskalender (hereafter SEG) 1865, 16 January, pp. 155–56. The feudal party selected Heydt as candidate for chamber president. The chamber elected Grabow with 222 votes, while Heydt received 31.Google Scholar

26. Henderson, W. O., The State and the Industrial Revolution in Prussia, 1740–1870 (Liverpool, 1958), 185.Google Scholar

27. Hansemann, D. to Mevissen, G., 9 November 1858, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116, 78.Google Scholar

28. Delbrück, Rudolf, Lebenserinnerungen, vol. 1, (Leipzig, 1905), 188–202, 234–38; the Camphausen Nachlass, HAStK, rep. 1023, also brings out the growing ties between government officials and the business class in the 1840s and 1850s. It is noteworthy that Kühlwetter had been a railroad director in Düsseldorf.Google Scholar

29. Gillis, John, The Prussian Bureaucracy in Crisis, 1840–1860 (Stanford, 1971), 64, 154;Google Scholar see especially Brose's, Eric D.The Politics of Technological Change in Prussia (Princeton, 1993), 18–19, whose argument moves beyond interpreting the Prussian state as either a Beamtenstaat or a Junkerstaat to emphasize the “intrastate fragmentation” and “internal wrangling” of various classes, factions, and regions in the state ministries that formulated Prussian economic policy in the 1840s. Brose further draws “attention to the ties between bureaucrats and Prussia's struggling entrepreneurial elite,” 253, 255.Google Scholar

30. Bismarck, , Gedanken und Erinnerungen (Stuttgart, 1919), 269.Google Scholar

31. The railroad companies that protested their absorption into the state railway system were the Lower Silesian-Mark (1850–1852), the Upper Silesian (1856), and the Wilhelmsbahn (1856–1857) railways.Google Scholar

32. The fund was enacted in 1842, but because of the agricultural and financial crises of mid-1840s, as well as the Revolution of 1848, the law's component involving a tax was never enforced.

33. Stenographische Berichte des Hauses der Abgeordneten (hereafter SBHA), 26 April 1855, 841–50; NZ, 27 March 1857, p. 145; SBHA, 22 February 1856, p. 502; Verwaltungsberichte des Ministeriums für Handel, Gewerbe und öffentliche Arbeit (hereafter VBMHGA) 1855–1857, 49; NZ, 13 March 1858; BBZ, 15 March 1859, 518.Google ScholarGrünthal, Günther, Parlamentarismus in Preussen 1848/49–1857/58 (Düsseldorf, 1982), 452.Google Scholar

34. BBZ, 2 March, 19 March and 5 May 1859.

35. VBMHGA 1855–1857, 22; VBMHGA 1858–1860, 28; VBMHGA 1861–1863, 25; VBMHGA 1864–1866, 26–27. The percentages are, respectively 40.8, 37.1, 33.7, and 32.1.Google Scholar

36. For the laws reducing the coal excise tax and ending the Direktionsprinzip see the Preussische Gesetz-Sammlung, 22 May 1861, 225–26, and 10 June 1861, 425–30. For an overview of the coalmining issue from 1850 to 1866, see “Besteuerung der Bergwerke,” GStA Merseburg, Rep. 2.2.1, no. 27423, n.p. For the initial difficulties in assembling enough votes for the 1861 laws see the letter of Otto to Ludolf Camphausen, 16 April 1861, HAStK, rep. 1023, L616.

37. “Der Herr Handelsminister v. d. Heydt und der Bergbau,” Zeitung für das deutsche Bergwerks- und Hūttenwesen (Wochen Beilage der Berliner Börsen-Zeitung), 18 November 1858.

38. Treue, Wilhelm, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Technik Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1986, 8th ed.), 124.Google Scholar

39. Numerous chambers of commerce submitted suggestions for revising the railroad paragraphs. BBZ, 23 July 1859.Google Scholar

40. The committee consisted of directors from the Lower-Silesian Mark, Berlin-Anhalt, and the Austrian Kaiser Ferdinand Northern railways along with the Bavarian Traffic Agency, Saxon finance officials, and the Hanoverian general directory of railroads. BBZ, 23 Jan 1860, p. 144.Google Scholar

41. “Die Eingabe der preussischen Eisenbahn-Verwaltungen an den Herrn Handelsminister von der Heydt, betreffend den Titel V.des Allg. Deutschen Handels-Gesetzbuches,” reprinted in BBZ, 7 February 1860.Google Scholar

42. NZ, 18 January 1861.Google Scholar

43. Otto Camphausen noted to his brother Ludolf on 11 November 1862 that the Prussian government was successful in selling the trade treaty at the 1862 Handelstag and in commercial regions outside of Prussia. HAStK, rep. 1023, L686a.

44. Michaelis, Otto, 25 July 1862, SEG 1862, 152–54. Along with the principal economic reasons, Michaelis also interpreted the treaty as a necessary “patriotic” response to Austria's challenge to dissolve the Customs Union.Google Scholar

45. There were, of course, setbacks: the attempt to suspend usury laws did not pass the House of Lords; and in 1861 a business tax was passed.

46. Its passage greatly affected the army reform bill and the preliminary phase of the constitutional conflict. Exceptions to the scholarly neglect of this issue are Anderson, E. N., The Social and Political Conflict in Prussia, 1858–64 (Lincoln, 1954), 110–18;Google Scholar and especially Kohut, Thomas, “The Prussian Land Tax Reform of 1861,” Master's Thesis, University of Minnesota, 1975.Google Scholar

47. Kohut, , “Land Tax, ” 9; August Meitzen, Der Boden und die landwirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse des preussischen Staates (Berlin, 1868), 1:19.Google Scholar

48. Jahrbuch für amtliche Statistik des preussischen Staates 1863 (Berlin, 1864), 1: 158; Kohut, “Land Tax,” 7.Google Scholar

49. Meitzen, , Der Boden, 1, 20; Kohut, “Land Tax,” 10.Google Scholar

50. For popular demands to change the property tax codes in 1848–49, see the “Immediate-Eingaben”from citizens petitioning for reform of the Grundsteuer. , GStAMerseburg, , rep. 2.2.1, no. 27417, pp. 510–61; on 21 July 1848 the Nationalversammlung presented a law to abolish Grundsteuerfreiheit, which was never passed; see the report of the State Ministry on the issue that requested a commission to study the matter. GStA Merseburg, rep.2.2.1., no. 27417, pp. 67–70.Google Scholar

51. Because the bill provided for the Kreistag governments, all of which were controlled by Prussian nobles, in carrying out the assessment and administration of the tax, liberal factions refused to support the bill. Seeing the impossibility of drafting a law that would please both the Chamber of Deputies and the House of Lords, the finance minister recommend that all further attempts to pass the bill be withdrawn. GStA Merseburg, rep. 2.2.1., no. 27414, pp. 78–107. In December 1856 the cabinet suggested re-presenting the bill, but Frederick William IV found fault with it, because a clause exempting the domains and buildings of the Reichsunmittelbaren had not been included. The change was minor, yet the bill never surfaced.Google Scholar See ibid., pp. 108–20.

52. The importance of the property tax reform in the summer of 1858 is noteworthy, because it is before the battle of Solferino, the Prussian mobilization of 1859, and the concrete military reform plants that called for greater revenues. E. N. Anderson placed the military reform as the primary reason for William's support, which does not heed the longer history of the tax and the royal support for it, which predates the military-bill conflict. Anderson, , Social and Political Conflict, 9–10.Google Scholar

53. Otto, to Camphausen, Ludolf, 3 November 1858, HAStK, rep. 1023, L491a. See also his missive of 5 November 1858, HAStK, rep.1023, L493a. Otto Camphausen was not entirely happy with Patow's dilatory handling of the property tax reform bill. Judging from his correspondence, O. Camphausen was instrumental in preparing the bills for presentation to the Landtag. O.Camphausen to L. Camphausen, 28 January 1859, HAStK, rep. 1023, L506.Google Scholar

54. SEG, 1861, 33–40; Kohut, “Land Tax,” 41, presents a slimmer margin of victory for the bill's passage.Google Scholar

55. Kohut, “Land Tax,” 11.

56. Liberals, however, were not unaware of the dilemma. See, for example, the election program of the Constitutional Party, March 1862, in SEG 1862, 130–31. This point is fully developed in Kohut's thesis.Google Scholar

57. This point is put forth by both Anderson and Kohut.

58. Pflanze, Otto, Bismarck and the Development of Germany (Princeton, 1990, 2nd ed.), 1:278.Google Scholar

59. Camphausen, O. to Camphausen, L., 6 June 1861, HAStK, rep. 1023, L619.Google Scholar

60. Martin, P.C., “Die Entstehung des preussischen Aktiengesetzes,” Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 56 (1969): 499–542; Padtberg, Rheinischer Liberalismus, 70.Google Scholar

61. Eisenbahn-Zeitung (hereafter EbZ) 8, no. 40, 6 October 1850, p. 177. EbZ 10, no. 36, 5 September 1852, p. 153; EbZ 12, no. 41, 9 October 1854, p. 162; EbZ, 28 May 1859, pp. 81–83;Google Scholar see also Hansen, Joseph, Gustav von Mevissen: Ein rheinisches Lebensbild 1815–1899. vol. 2, Abhandlungen, Denkschriften, Reden und Briefe (Berlin, 1906), 537–44, for the Cologne Chamber of Commerce's recommendations on how the government should amend the economic problems caused by the mobilization.Google Scholar

62. For the origins and practices of the Verein, see Dunlavy, Colleen A., Politics and Industrialization: Early Railroads in the United States and Prussia (Princeton, 1994), 162–73.Google Scholar

63. Heydt, to Wilhelm, Friedrich IV, 22 June 1857, GStA Merseburg, 2.2.1., no. 29531, pp. 109–10.Google Scholar

64. BBZ, 13 October 1858, #516, 2143; Der Aktionär 5, no. 255, 14 November 1858, p. 709.Google Scholar

65. Hammacher, F. to Mevissen, G., 3 November 1858, HAStK, 1073, no. 116, p. 45.Google Scholar

66. BBZ, 24 January 1859, p. 201.Google Scholar

67. BBZ, 19 January 1859, p. 237.Google Scholar

68. Zunkel, Unternehmer, 201.Google Scholar

69. Hammacher, F. to Mevissen, G., 3 November 1858, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116, p. 45.Google Scholar

70. Zunkel, , Unternehmer, 202.Google Scholar

71. Anderson, E. N. quoting the BBZ in Conflict, 320.Google Scholar

72. For the role of the chambers of commerce in postal reform see Merseburg, GStA, rep. 90a B. III. 2b, no. 6, vol. 73, 202 (4 December 1861)Google Scholar; for the request of a chair for commercial law at a Prussian university and the resulting report of Bethmann-Hollweg to Heydt, 8 November 1860, see Merseburg, GStA, rep. 120C VIII 1, no. 25, vol. 3, 174; for Heydt's response to the Handelskammer, p. 180; see pp. 169, 184–86, 200–1 for issues of Wechselsteuer, Stempelsteuer, and railroad freights.Zunkel sees 1866 as the year when government relaxed its position toward the chambers of commerce, but ministry files at Merseburg reveal a much earlier rapprochement. Zunkel, Unternehmer, 199.Google Scholar

73. Ältesten der Kaufmannschaft von Berlin, “Bericht über den Handel und die Industrie von Berlin im Jahre 1859, ” Staatsarchiv Postsdam, Rep. 2A, I HG, no. 71; see also the protocols of the state ministry, 19 May 1859, GStA Merseburg, rep. 90a B.III. 2b, no. 6, Bd. 71, 94.

74. “Die Aufhebung der Durchfuhrzölle,” NZ, 22 December 1860.Google Scholar

75. See, for example, the reports and recommendations of the Handelskammer and Kaufmannschaften from Frankfurt an der Oder, Berlin, Erfurt, and Crefeld, GStA Merseburg, rep. 120C VIII 1, no. 25, vol. 3, pp. 135–65.

76. Hansemann, D. to Heydt, , 2 April 1860, GStA Merseburg, rep. 120C VIII 1, no. 25, vol. 3, pp. 133–34.Google Scholar

77. NZ, 30 December 1859.Google Scholar

78. Hamerow, , Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858–1871: Ideas and Institutions, 349–50.Google Scholar

79. Heinrich Kruse to G. Mevissen, n.d.(c.1863), HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116 (emphasis original).

80. Diergardt, F. von to Mevissen, G., 7 March 1860, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116.Google Scholar

81. See, for instance, Diergardt's information from Undersecretary von der Reck on the best procedure for the Rhenish Railway to attain the right to absorb the Aachen Düsseldorf Railway. Diergardt to Mevissen, 10 February 1863, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 289.

83. Protocols of the Board of Directors, 15 October 1858, HAStK, rep. 1028, no. 9, 154.Google Scholar

84. Protocols of the Board of the Directors, 7 January 1859, HAStK, rep. 1028, no. 9., 215.Google Scholar

85. Dept. of Interior (in Cologne) to Pommer-Esche (in Coblenz), 7 April 1859, GStA Merseburg, rep. 93E, no. 3753, n.p.; Regierungspräsident E. Möller to Pommer-Esche, 8 April 1859, GStA Merseburg, rep. 93E, no. 3753, n.p.; BBZ, 25 May 1859, p. 989; protocol of Rhenish Railway directors, 11 November 1859, HAStK, rep. 1028, no. 9, p.505; Decree of Prince Wilhelm and state ministry, 21 August 1859, Koblenz, Landes Hauptarchiv (hereafter LHAK), rep. 403, no. 11887, p. 61.Google Scholar

86. Von der Reck to Railroad Commission/Cologne, 4 September 1860, LHAK, rep. 403, no. 11801, pp. 405–06.Google Scholar

87. Heydt to Railroad Commission in Cologne, 26 April 1860, LHAK, rep. 403, no. 11887, 343.Google Scholar

88. The Upper Silesian company received permission from the trade ministry to cancel construction of a potentially unprofitable line on the right bank of the Oder and further received the hitherto forbidden right to run its own coalmining operation. Heydt to Prince William, 7 November 1859, Merseburg, GStA, rep.2.2.1., no. 29574, pp. 273–75; decree of Prince William, 14 November 1859,Google ScholarMerseburg, GStA, Rep. 2.2.1., no. 29573, p. 19; Position paper of Heydt, 28 January 1860,Google ScholarMerseburg, GStA, Rep. 90a K III 3, no. 14, vol. 1, p. 306. The Cologne-Minden railroad also received advantageous concessions to fuse its operations in a central station with the Rhenish Railway and new stipulations for the construction of its lines to Giessen and Arnheim.Google Scholar

89. BBZ, 13 September 1859.Google Scholar

90. Ibid., 27 February 1860 and 12 March 1860.

91. Ibid., 15 March 1860.

92. See, for example, NZ, 4 and 13 February 1862; 4 April 1862.Google Scholar

93. Ibid., 29 June 1862.

94. Ibid., 20 August 1862.

95. For the petition of Kaufmann Schierer see Director Offerman of Upper Silesian to Finance Minister Heydt, 31 March 1862, GStA Merseburg, rep. 93E, no. 3420, pp. 280–81.Google Scholar

96. BBZ, 1 September 1859 and 13 January 1860.Google Scholar

97. See the “Bericht der vereinigten Commissionen für Handel und Gewerbe und für Finanzen und Zölle über Petitionen,” Chamber of Deputies, 7th legislative period, 2nd session, 1863, GStA Merseburg, rep.93E, no. 3420, pp. 309–14; quote, p. 310. Although the trade ministry defended its overall record publicly, intraministerial memoranda show its own recognition of shoddiness. For example, in 1861 Albert Maybach, a ministry official and future minister of railroad affairs, harshly criticized the “deficient operational competency” of the government officials managing the Saarbrücken and Rhein-Nahe railways, which had cost the government millions in dividend subsidies. Portraying them as inefficient, irresponsible, unqualified, dilatory, and technically limited, Maybach recommended transfers for all (save the dismissal of the chief director) and to reorganize the entire office. Maybach to Heydt, 1 March 1861, GStA Merseburg, rep. 93E, no. 3884, n.p.

98. Ohlsen, Manfred, Der Eisenbahnkönig: Bethel Henry Strousberg: eine preussische Gründerkarriere (Berlin, 1987, 2d ed.), 62.Google Scholar

99. It is self-evident that alongside spheres of cooperation there were also spheres of conflict. Ambivalence is the operative word for businessmen's relationship to the Prussian state from the Vormärz period through the 1870s.Google Scholar

100. See the protocol of the committee “für die Anlage des Schleswig-Holsteinschen Kanals,” HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 566, 112ff.

101. Engelberg, Ernest, Bismarck: Urpreusse und Reichsgründer (Berlin, 1988), 562.Google Scholar

102. In 1863–64 when the government surrendered administrative control of the Aachen–Düsseldorfer and the Ruhrort-Crefeld-Kries Gladbacher Railways to the Berg-Mark Railway (another private railway administered by the state), it exercised its option to purchase all privately held shares in the two railways. The Berg-Mark Railway bought the options in May 1864 but paid the actual sum (1,247,000 thalers with common stock) much later in January 1866. GStA Merseburg, rep. 90a K. III. 3, no. 15, Bd. II, n.p.; Gesetzsammlung 1866 (19 February), 114.Google Scholar

103. See the “Auszug aus dem Sitzungsprotokoll der Direktion vom 17. October 1865,” HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 241.Google Scholar

104. Zunkel, Unternehmer, 221.

105. For the participation of businessmen and industrialists in the political process of the 1860s see Kaelble, Hartmut, Berliner Unternehmer während der frühen Industrialisierung: Herkunft, Status und politischer Einfluss (Berlin, 1972), 230;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSheehan, James, German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1983), 80–81;Google ScholarAnderson, Social and Political Conflict, 293, 298, 303. Among the electors chosen in Berlin there were 550 merchants, 240 industrialists,17 brewers, and 3 bankers. See also Anderson, Appendix C on p. 445, for the percentage of merchants who sat in the Landtag from 1848 to 1866.Google Scholar

106. Zunkel, Unternehmer, 193.

107. Kaelble, Berliner Unternehmer, 230. Kaelble's analysis of businessmen's politics unfortunately ends in 1862, thus preventing a clear long-term assessment of where and how political attitudes drifted.

108. “Constitutionelles Wahl-Programm,” 1 November 1861, Nachlass Hansemanns, GStA Merseburg, rep. 92, no. 38, 115–16.Google Scholar

109. Bahne's, Siegfried “Vor dem Konflikt: die Altliberalen in der Regentschaftsperiode der ‘Neuen Ära,’” in Soziale Bewegung und politische Verfassung: Beiträge zur Geschichte der modernen Welt, ed. Engelhardt, Ulrich, Sellin, Volker, Stuke, Horst (Stuttgart, 1976), 154–96, remains one of the best analyses of the old-liberal political posture.Google Scholar

110. “Die Ansprüche and die demokratische Partei,” NZ, 6 December 1860.Google Scholar

111. Ludolf to Otto Camphausen, 5 January 1859, HAStK, rep. 1023, L505.Google Scholar

112. Pflanze, Otto, “Juridical and Political Responsibility in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” in The Responsibility of Power, ed. Krieger, Leonard and Stern, Fritz, (New York, 1969), 175–97.Google Scholar

113. See Grünthal's, Günther “Die Wahlen zum preussischen Abgeordnetenhaus von 1858,” in Von der Arbeiterbewegung zum modernen Sozialstaat: Festschrift für Gerhard A. Ritter zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Kocka, Jürgen, Puhle, Hans-Jürgen, und Tenfelde, Klaus, (Munich, 1994), 329–45, for the problems of the liberal and democratic factions in 1858, especially with the “Silesian Nine-Point Program.”Google Scholar

114. See E. N. Anderson for figures. Even in Cologne the enthusiasm for businessmen to enter directly into New-Era politics appeared slim. D. Hansemann encourged Mevissen to stand as candidate, noting “sehr unrecht ist es, wenn Cöln keinen Kaufmann oder Industriellen in den Landtag schickt.” Hansemann, to Mevissen, , 9 November 1858, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116, 78–79.Google Scholar

115. NZ, 30 July 1859.Google Scholar

116. For Hansemann's refusal of candidature, BBZ, 13 November 1858, p. 2371.Google Scholar

117. Diergardt, F. to Mevissen, , 13 November 1858, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 112 I, 178.Google Scholar

118. Ludolf, to Camphausen, Otto, 20 October 1862, HAStK, rep. 1023, L685a. “Dass der Abwesenheit der reicheren Kaufleute vorzüglich die Indifferenz zum Grunde liegt, die sie auch nach anderer Richtung zeigen, versteht sich.”Google Scholar

119. The king, according to L. Camphausen, wished to come but refused because of his irritation that Cologne might appoint Bockum-Dolfs, a leading member of the parliamentary opposition, as lord mayor. L. to O. Camphausen, 19 11 1862, HAStK, rep. 1023, L687.

120. Hansen, Mevissen, 1:738.

121. Parent, Thomas, Passiver Widerstand im Preussischen Verfassungskonflikt: Die Kölner Abgeordnetenfeste (Cologne, 1982), 74.Google Scholar

122. For the invitation to the “pflegende Berathung,” see HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116, 90.

123. “Der preussische Landtag von 1863,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 3, no. 103 (1863): 124; Zunkel attributes the authorship to Beckerath: Unternehmer, 213.Google Scholar

124. Ludolf, to Camphausen, Otto, 3 January 1863, HAStK, rep. 1023, L695.Google Scholar

125. SEG, 1863, 114–15.Google Scholar

126. Ludolf, to Camphausen, Otto, 3 January 1863, HAStK, rep. 1023, L695.Google Scholar

127. Diergardt to Mevissen, 17 January 1863, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 116, 212.Google Scholar

128. Hansen, , Mevissen, 1:739.Google Scholar

129. Zunkel, Unternehmer, 216–17; Parent, Passiver Widerstand, 68.

130. For the role of the Cologne deputy banquets in the constitutional conflict see Parent, Passiver Widerstand, 180.

131. Ludolf, to Camphausen, Otto, 23 July 1863, HAStK, rep. 1023. L718.Google Scholar

132. Diergardt, F. to Simson, , 28 September 1863, HAStK, rep. 1073, no. 112 I, 773.Google Scholar

133. Quoted in Zunkel, Unternehmer, 217–18.Google Scholar

134. Ibid., 217, n. 42.

135. Von Unruh, Erinnerungen, 241ff.; Engelberg, Bismarck, 484–91.Google Scholar

136. See Mevissen's “Promemoria über den preussischen Verfassungskonflikt, den deutschen Bundesstaat und das zukünftige deutsche Parlament,” in Hansen, , Mevissen, 2: 575–84; quote, 576. It is worth nothing that Mevissen slightly altered the Roman republican adage, replacing “salus populi” with “salus publica.” The original had, perhaps, too much of a democratic ring.Google Scholar

137. Quoted in Engelberg, Bismarck, 562.

138. Quoted in Zunkel, Unternehmer, 195.