ABSTRACT
The German Confederation, established in 1815 and now revived, was a union of sovereign princes with an identity in international law. Its sovereign members were represented by envoys in the diet in Frankfurt. The only feature the diet had in common with a parliament was its name, for the struggle against the idea of popular representation was its very essence. The envoys acted on the instructions of their separate governments, which were often slow in coming. The states represented at Frankfurt varied greatly in size and importance, ranging from small principalities like Waldeck or those of the Thuringian region to the two major European powers, Austria and Prussia. A large part of the Habsburg empire lay outside the Confederation, as did the Prussian provinces of Posen and West Prussia. During the revolution these provinces had been made part of the Confederation, but after its reconstitution the Prussian government hastened to take them out again, to emphasize the fact that, like the Habsburg empire, it was a European as well as a German power. The main organ of the diet was the inner council (engerer Rat), in which the eleven larger states had one vote each, while the remainder had six votes between them. In the plenary session of the diet, which met only rarely, the two largest states had four votes each. Austria held the presidency, which also gave it a casting vote.
