An elected assembly convened following the German revolutions of March 1848 to draft a liberal constitution for all of Germany. It represented every state in the German Confederation, but proved to be disunited and powerless. After its offer of the imperial crown to the king of Prussia was repudiated by Austria and rejected by the king himself, the parliament disintegrated.
The Frankfurt Parliament is the name of the German National Assembly founded during the Revolutions of 1848 that tried to unite Germany in a democratic way.
The members of the Frankfurt Parliament convened in the St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt on May 18, 1848, when the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, influenced by the 1848 revolutions, gave support to a National Assembly to discuss German unification.
Deliberations
Civil Rights
Sessions started in July when civil rights were discussed.
Factions
After the discussion about civil rights the Assembly factionalized along liberal-versus-conservative lines, as well as between monarchists and republicans. On the moderate left side appeared the parliamentary unitarists, who advocated a centralized state with a monarchy responsible to parliament.
The existence of so many factions, of course, made the work far more difficult.
Obstruction
Work was further obstructed by , conservative resistance from Austria, Prussia and foreign countries and by a quarrel about Schleswig-Holstein.
Schleswig-Holstein
At the same time as the events in Frankfurt, a Danish constitutional convention had assembled in Copenhagen, and the question of extending the draft constitution to Schleswig quickly arose, since Schleswig's population was mostly Danish and felt threatened by the prospect of becoming a small minority in a new Germany. This crisis let to a German revolt in both Schleswig and Holstein, prompting the Frankfurt Parliament to approve the intervention of Prussia to protect its member state Holstein.
A following Prussian-Danish armistice in August 1848 was negotiated without the consent of the Frankfurt Parliament, thus underlining a major serious weakness;
Revolts
In September revolts occurred in Frankfurt and the parliament had to call troops from the German states.
Deliberations about a constitution
In October 1848 delibrations about a constitution started.
Failure
After the completion of the constitution the deputies presented the crown of Little Germany to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia. He refused what he called a crown "from the gutter" and caused the Prussian and Austrian deputies to leave the parliament, which was doomed to be disbanded.
Conclusion
The Frankfurt Parliament was the first attempt to create a unified Germany.
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