confer dignities and titles; to fill vacant electorates; to found
universities; to grant privileges not injurious to the states of
the empire; to receive and apply the public revenues; and
generally to watch over the public safety. In certain cases, the
electors form a council to him. In quality of emperor, he possesses
no territory within the empire, nor receives any revenue for his
support. But his revenue and dominions, in other qualities,
constitute him one of the most powerful princes in Europe.
From such a parade of constitutional powers, in the
representatives and head of this confederacy, the natural
supposition would be, that it must form an exception to the general
character which belongs to its kindred systems. Nothing would be
further from the reality. The fundamental principle on which it
rests, that the empire is a community of sovereigns, that the diet
is a representation of sovereigns and that the laws are addressed to
sovereigns, renders the empire a nerveless body, incapable of
regulating its own members, insecure against external dangers, and
agitated with unceasing fermentations in its own bowels.
The history of Germany is a history of wars between the emperor
and the princes and states; of wars among the princes and states
themselves; of the licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression
of the weak; of foreign intrusions, and foreign intrigues; of
requisitions of men and money disregarded, or partially complied
with; of attempts to enforce them, altogether abortive, or attended
with slaughter and desolation, involving the innocent with the
guilty; of general inbecility, confusion, and misery.
In the sixteenth century, the emperor, with one part of the
empire on his side, was seen engaged against the other princes and
states. In one of the conflicts, the emperor himself was put to
flight, and very near being made prisoner by the elector of Saxony.