No. 20.]
Legation of the United States,
Berlin, April 22, 1867.
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
[Translation.]
Illustrious, noble, and honorable members of the
Parliament of the North German Confederation :
I see you again assembled around me, at the termination of your
important labors, with a feeling of sincere satisfaction. The hopes
I recently expressed from this place, in the name of the allied
governments, have since then, through your aid, been brought to
fulfilment. With patriotic earnestness yon have understood the
greatness of your task, and have kept in view our common objects
with voluntary self-restraint. For that reason we have succeeded in
establishing upon a secure basis a constitution, the development of
which we may confidently leave to the future. The federal authority
is furnished with the attributes indispensable to, but also
sufficient for, the prosperity and the power of the confederation.
The individual states, while their future is guaranteed by the
totality of the Bund, have retained their freedom of action in all
departments wherein variety and development is admissible and
salutary. To this popular representation is secured that
co-operation in carrying out the great national objects which
corresponds to the spirit of the existing constitutions of the
countries and to the necessities of the governments to see their
action supported by the agreement of the German people. All of us
who have co-operated in carrying out the national task, the allied
governments as well as the representatives of the people, have
readily made the sacrifice of our views and our wishes, and we were
able to do so in the conviction that these sacrifices were made for
Germany and that they were worth our union. By this uni-versal
readiness, coupled with the conciliation of and victory over
opposing views, the guarantee is at the same time gained for that
future fruitful development of the confederation, with the
conclusion of which, also, the hopes common to us with our brethren
in south Germany may have advanced nearer to their fulfilment.
The time has arrived when our German fatherland is able to uphold its
peace, its rights, and its dignity by its own collective
strength.
The national self-consciousness which has found elevated expression
in the parliament has met with a powerful echo from all quarters of
Germany None the less, however, are all the governments and peoples
of Germany unanimous that the regained power of the nation has,
above all, to uphold its significance by rendering secure the
blessings of peace.
Honorable gentlemen, the great work in which we have been thought
worthy by Providence
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to
co-operate is approaching its completion. The popular
representations of the individual states will not refuse their
constitutional recognition to what you have created in community
with their governments. The same spirit that has enabled the task to
succeed here will also preside over their deliberations. Thus, then,
the first parliament of the North German confederation may close its
labors with the elevating consciousness that it is accompanied by
the thanks of the fatherland, and that the work it has accomplished
will, with the help of Providence, be fruitfully developed both in
our time and in future generations. May God bestow his blessing on
us and our dear fatherland.
