The Express.
London, England, 1849-05-31 00:00:00

GERMANY.

PRUSSIA.—Oar comspoadamt writce as follows
BERLIN, MAT 28.

The Prussian edition of tte .Reichaver)assuny; or
Oerman constitution, is at lad in the hands of the
printer. I have not seen the proof-shetts myself,
but I have seen thoto who say they have. We are to
have it in the Stoats Anseiger either to-morrow
evening or the next. Already the devils of the
Deekerselle-gelleime-oberhafltek-drackerei, whence
all state letter-press issues, have been tempted with
various amounts of dollars to abstract proofs for the
speedier enlightenment of far-off publics. But there
is no occasion to be anxious about this subject. There
is no change possible which has not been argued
over in the public papers hundreds of times. The
most important alteration will be the abolition of that
article which contains the principle of vote by ballot.
Probably there will also be an article introduced to
enable the executive to pass decrees during the recess,
in case of necessity, to be submitted as soon as passible
to the legislative body, but in the meantime to have
the force of law. It may be expected, that there will
also be a considerable change in.roducsd into that
article of the Frankfort constitution which provides
that the G rund-rechte, or main goaranteCi of the sub-
ject, cannot be suspended without the consent of the
Chambers.

It can only be hcpcd that it is a merciful nreroyment,
for in any cam it will have to beaceepted. The sadden
flash of excitement which the new French revolution—
for the result of the last elec:ions can bo called no-
thing kas—has lit up amongst the democratic party
here, makes one really pause. People who six
weeks ego were very sane and sensible liberals begin
to talk of the universal axial repubre... This it what
the I imeN would call " throwing off the mask." No;
there was no mask ; it is a real change, impressed by
the impossibility of trusting their governments.
I described to you ye•.terday t':e contents of the
letter which had occasioned the arrest of Waldeck.
The person upon whom this document was f,..und, a
certain Ohm, has just been arrested at Hamburg, and j
brought to Benin. 'lke said Ohm, lam sorry to say, j
does very little credit to the respectable corps to which
he belongs—commercial travellers. Neither does
he justify the high character given by the Pomera-
nian member of the second chamber, Klei-t Retzow,
of the chivalrous honour of that section of the Ger-
man people, for he is a Pomeranian. Ohm,
in fact, is such a »hmetsis sujet, that the authori-
ties here, seeing the bad case they would be in if
'hey brought such a witness face to face with Wal-
deck, thought it better to let him go, for, like the
Gaulish slave sent to assassinate Marius, Ohm would
have dropt his dagger in the presence of such a men.
Now the Dogberries of Hamburg, who did rot know
all this, but thcught they could do the Prussian go-
vernment no greater favour then to lay hands upon
the fugitive Ohm, have put the government stroll
exactly Me that stale otembarrassment from which it
had just freed itseif. It is the government's misfor-
tude to be too well served. I have seen a gentleman
to-day, whose brother is confined in one of the cells of
the military prison in which those are put %%basil
offences come under the cognisance of the court
martial. P. is a room eight feet square, dirty in the
extreme, and unprovidel with any comfort whatever. I
He die, not know why he is consigned to this dun-
geon, nor can he guess what fate awaits him. It
sulKes to be dencunced by an informer to be exposed
to such inflictions.

AUSTRIA.—We have dates from Vienna to May 26.
The emperor arrived there on the morning of that
day, at five o'clock, from Warsaw, attended by Count
Orunne. Schwarzenberg came on the previous day.
The vice-gesjiann (sheriff) of the Presburg county
of Hungary, Von PettOcz, was shot at Freeburg, on
the 2411), for high treason.
On the 22nd inst. the Austrian garrison of Kenji-
ohs, in Hungary, were expelled by an insurrection
of the people, and obliged to retreat to Warasdin.
News of the 18th inst., from F,sseg, state that the impe-
rialists were driven out of Mohacs and Fiinf kitchen,
which, it may be remembered, were the poets of the
extreme left of the Ban's corps, and that the whole
of the said corps was obliged to concentrate itself
about Essig.
A band-billet" of the emperor's, dated from War-
saw, orders the collection of an army corps at Inns-
prick.
Perczel had addressed a note to the Servian govern-
ment, informing it of the proclamation of the republic
in Hungary, and requiring tokens of a friendly un-
derstanding. The only important intelligence front Hungary is
that of the is-ma of a proclamation by the Hunga-
rian nobles ranged on the side of the Austrian.. The
names of many ladies figure among the signatures to
this document.
FRANKFORT.—UpIand's drift of the proclama-
tion, to be issued by the German National Assembly
to the German people, is as follows :
The National Assembly feels itself compelled to address to
the people by which it was elected, and which people it has
to represent in the most important of its concerns, a few
words of enlightenment and encouragement in reference to
the position which it (the Assembly) has recently assumed.
This position has become so difficult a one that it would ap-
pear as if the Constituent Assembly were on the brink of
dissolution, es if the work of the constitution, which it has
brought toe close with so much toil, were thereby about to
fall to pieces, and se if the mighty stream of the German
people's rising ware pitifully to be lost in the sand. The difil-
nines that are accumulating before our eyes are wily of ex-
ternal origin, being produced by the resistance offered to the
realisation of the imperial constitution decreed and proclaimed
as definitively valid--a resistance offered by the five iniabtieet
iadividsel governments as now also by the central power
whisk we enrealves caked lato being—and partly (and
nest mmehmily).theT are such as emanate from our own
bah llotona by the multitudinous retirements of
WWI = have either deemed themselves obliged to obey
the wsmfmsat orders for their recoil, or who have despaired
of work being sacoesdid, or d the labours of the As-
sembly, if continued being attended with any further ad-
nab.. Degdto these impediments, we believe ourselves
capable of adatalaing both our own position sad the sta-
bility of the mum entrusted to us; we confront the
ill-
favour of existing circumstances with that same pertinacity
which has often, ere now, led to eventual victory. To thus.

governments wheat p ditical wisdom was last year so power-
less, so disconcerted, and so utterly paralysed, that they were
compelled to call upon the seventeen men of trust attached
to the Diet to take the initiative in framing a draft of the
constitution, and which, now that their vital vigour has n-
tented, not only suggest to us an accord, but even plies an
oetroyed constitution in prospect —to those governments we
oppose the principle that was perseveringly vindicated in the
ante-parliament, that, at the outset of our proceedings, was
solemnly propounded, and thenceforward actually main-
taioed—the princip'e of the nation's sovereignty: we lean
for support on those states, and the populations of those
states (lees mighty though they be), which have ac-
knowledged the resolutions of our Assembly to be bind-
ing, and the published constitution to be substantially
legal. Our late experience has afforded irrefragible proof
that an imperial constitution could never have resulted from
any attempt at an accord made by 39 Revenants, the
Natienal Assembly and all the local assemblies into the bar
gain; and that the National Assembly, even against its
inclination, must itself have taken the work of the constitu-
tion in hand, if anything were to come of it.
With respect to the provisional central power created under
our act of the 28th of June, 1848, and which, now, when
the object la view is the exesention of the resolutions hearing
upon the reelae- don of the constitution, refuses to execute
these, and leaves a ministry at the helm, to which the
Assembly denied its confidence frem the beginning, it was
resolved in our sitting of the 19th et May, before the grand
retignatim of members, that the Assembly should at s nee
(and if possible from among the number of the reigning
princes) choose a stadtholder of the empire, who should be
Invested far the time being with all the rights and pried. g•s
of the supreme bead of the empire. In this way it
was thought that the intent of the constitution, even in
the intermediate period, might best be responded to.
At length we sought to meet the danger to which the
National Assembly was exposed by the numerous re-
signations of members, by our resolutions of yesterday,
to wit, that 100 members (instead of the prescribed
150) should be suftitient to constitute a house; not that
we regarded so obvious a diminution of our numbers as an
indifferent matter, or that we wished thereby to suture vic-
tory to a party that displayed enduring resolution, but in
order that the last bond of the German people's unity might
not be rent, and that, at all events, a nucleus might remain,
round which a more ample circle might speedily array
itself. The representatives of almost all the German states
still hold their seats in Se Paul's, and these very states are
still signally represented whose deputies have been re-
ealled—viz., PrWeilt. Austria, and Saxony. A considerable
number of members are only temporarily absent, mid
their return is to be provided tot; its the ferm of mem-
h n' substitutes and supplzmentary elections indemnifi-
cation may be expected for our lees.' on the de-
parture of others. But even if the solemn call of
our fatherland should fail in puteacy, still we are minded,
small though our numbers be, and great as may be our
toil, to deposit the warrant we ree-lied from the German
people, and the tattered, but faithfully &fended b
eat the hands of that imperial parliament which, according
to our reeolutiors of the 4th ult., is to meet on the 15th of
August, and the elections for whoae lower house are to take
place on the 15th of July. Even in these resolutions an
attempt to encroach upon the rights if the government
hes bee n discovered, whilst, in fact, they were rends red
unavoidable, inasmuch as no executive act of the kind was
to be expected from the holder of the provisional central
power.
While we thus endeavour to maintain the representa-
tion of the nation, and to give vitality to the constitution,
we make a claim in this eventful muscat upon the active
en-operation of the collective body of the Garman peeple.
We challenge to no breach of the peace, we incite not to
civil war, but we consider it necessary in this iron age
that the people sheuld stand on its guard, well practised in
arms, to the intent chat, if its right to the cormitution,
one the popular liberty connected therewith should be
threatened with violence, or if there should be any attempt
to force a ceristitution upon it that did not emaaate from its
representative', it may be able to repel the unjust attack.
With a view to this end, we consider it urgently necessary
that in all state, attached to the consbtuti ea toe people'.
:used should be s;.eedily rendered complete, and that it
mould be held bound, in conjunction with the standing army,
to maintain the con-titution of the empire. To this we add
au e theftanon, that, by the sending of sobatitutas and the
institution of supplementary elections, our Assembly may be
11117 ninny rrnovatrai without delay. But above all, in full
confidence in the pride and honour of oar people—a people
that has newly awe ke to the sense of liberty—we trust that
it will institute the elections, not according to the provisions
of an arbitrarily °vireo(' electoral law, but s ly ac :ording
to that law which the Constituent Assembly has beamed, and
that when the appoint, d election day apprenches, an active
spirit of emelatien will display itself in the length and
breadth of the lend—a sleek bent on the use or the attain-
ment of the common night of auffrsgo.
The motion for the issue of the above proclamation
was carried by a large majority.
It was said that the volunteers of the Palatinate
took possession yesterday evening of Worms, and
pushed their atlv..oced poets as ter as Osthofen, about
a league and a half from Worms, on tie Oppenheim
road. Prussian troops were in this last mentioned
town.

The P 11.4 Gazette, from which the above is ex-
treated, announced also that it had just received the
communication that the Hanovetutn deputies had
been enjoined to quit the German National Assembly.
WURTENIBERG.—Our latest news from Stmt.-
gardt is to May 27. A proclamation of the ministers
to the people of Wurtemberg bad just appeared,
declaring that the government would not form a
separate treaty with Baden and the Paid n te. The
grand meeting about to be held at Reutlingen on the
28th was the rcotive for this step. A meet-
ing of the trocps at Ludwigeburg, on the
24th, had actually t ken place; they refused to dis-
peree at the order of their officers and of the command-
ing officer. Some said that Major-Gen. von Troyff
finally gave his consent to the holding of it, meting
the soldiers would not be denied. As soon as the
I king was made acquainted with the proceeding, he
hastened to the spot on horseback and harangued the
troops. (hi the 25th they were again personally
addressed by his majesty, who requested to hear from
their own lips whether he could rely on their loyalty
and fidelity in case he placed himself at their head.
Their answer was, that they would shed, one and all,
the it last drop of blood for him, provided he under-
took nothing spinet the constitution or the decrees
of the German National Assemb'y.