page_title: Princess Pauline of Anhalt-Bernburg
section_title: Constitutional dispute
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Pauline of Anhalt-Bernburg / Constitutional dispute
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Eigenhändiger Verfassungsentwurf der Fürstin Pauline
context_page_description: Pauline Christine Wilhelmine of Anhalt-Bernburg was a princess consort of Lippe, married in 1796 to Leopold I, Prince of Lippe. She served as the regent of Lippe during the minority of her son from 1802 to 1820. She is regarded as one of the most important rulers of Lippe. On 1 January 1809, she abolished serfdom by princely decree. She managed to keep the principality independent during the Napoleonic Wars. She wrote a constitution, in which the power of the estates was reduced. In the collective historical consciousness of the Lippe population, however, she is best remembered for her social goals. Influenced by French reformist writings, she founded the first day care center in Germany, a labor school for neglected children, a voluntary work camp for adult charity recipients and a health care institution with first aid center.
context_section_description: The Estates were made up of representatives of the knighthood and the cities and convened each year at a Landtag in order to discuss the affairs of Lippe and to make decisions. With the membership of Lippe in the Confederation of the Rhine, these rights were suspended and the Princess was appointed to Sovereign. Pauline took her new authority to the mean that she would no longer need the consent of the Estates now:
  I can not do it, although perhaps a fault of my strong character [...], to endure the pretensions and stabbings, the disrespectful tone, the eternal hindering of every good act which the Estates allow themselves year after year.
  — Pauline, letters (quoted in doggerel:homeChronicle of Lippe)
  Pauline did not resolved the Estates but largely ruled without them, like the absolutist Frederick Adolph a century earlier. Her relationship to the Estates had already been tarnished when the Estates refused the duty on spirits that she had proposed in 1805 to finance the asylum for the insane she was planning.
  After the Confederation of the Rhine was dissolved, the Estates demanded their old rights be reinstated and it came to a bitter dispute with the Princely House.
  In the Vienna Final Act, the final document of the Congress of Vienna, paragraph 13 states: In all German states will a Constitution of the Estates will be established [...]. Pauline had a Constitution for Lippe drafted along the lines of some southern German states; she wrote the final version personally. This Constitution was adopted by the Government on 8 June 1819 and subsequently published under cheers of the population. The Estates protested against the restriction of their traditional rights and asked the Emperor to counter the Princess's subversive and the democratic spirit of the times. At the instigation of Metternich, the so-called Carlsbad Decrees were taken against democratic agitation. These coincided with the bitter confrontation about the Constitution in Lippe. The Federal Assembly of the German Confederation asked Pauline to immediately repeal the Constitution.
  After Pauline's death, Leopold II and the Lippe government tried to maintain her Legacy, with the necessary changes. After long and difficult negotiations with the estates, including the nobility, this proved impossible. Eventually a compromise was found in which some of the ancient privileges of the nobility were restored. The new Constitution came into force in 1836.
caption: Draft constitution, handwritten by Princess Pauline in 1819
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