sovereignty: In the fifteenth they had little more than the symbols
and decorations of power.
Out of this feudal system, which has itself many of the
important features of a confederacy, has grown the federal system
which constitutes the Germanic empire. Its powers are vested in a
diet representing the component members of the confederacy; in the
emperor, who is the executive magistrate, with a negative on the
decrees of the diet; and in the imperial chamber and the aulic
council, two judiciary tribunals having supreme jurisdiction in
controversies which concern the empire, or which happen among its
members.
The diet possesses the general power of legislating for the
empire; of making war and peace; contracting alliances; assessing
quotas of troops and money; constructing fortresses; regulating
coin; admitting new members; and subjecting disobedient members to
the ban of the empire, by which the party is degraded from his
sovereign rights and his possessions forfeited. The members of the
confederacy are expressly restricted from entering into compacts
prejudicial to the empire; from imposing tolls and duties on their
mutual intercourse, without the consent of the emperor and diet;
from altering the value of money; from doing injustice to one
another; or from affording assistance or retreat to disturbers of
the public peace. And the ban is denounced against such as shall
violate any of these restrictions. The members of the diet, as
such, are subject in all cases to be judged by the emperor and diet,
and in their private capacities by the aulic council and imperial
chamber.
The prerogatives of the emperor are numerous. The most
important of them are: his exclusive right to make propositions to
the diet; to negative its resolutions; to name ambassadors; to