Theodor von Schon, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, und die Revolution von 1848 by Hans RothfelsReview by: John G. GazleyThe American Historical Review, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Apr., 1938), pp. 620-622Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1865651 .

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620 Reviews of Books

and events. In the maze of plans and conspiracies he skillfully introduces each new figure by a brief and well-drawn sketch based on the more re- liable memoirs. Like Nechkina he stresses the significance of the Society of United Slavs as foreshadowing the radical program of the no-caste demo- crats of the i86o's.

In line with the general postwar tendency Mazour assigns an increasing importance to the Southern Society; new materials, published during the last fifteen years, have greatly enhanced the significance of Pestel as a theorist and as the dynamic leader of the movement. The author brings out skill- fully the fundamental divergences between the Northern and Southern societies and attributes their contradictions to differences in social position. In some respects, however, this useful method of analysis seems to have been applied in exaggerated degree; after all, was the social position of Sergei Volkonsky, of the Southern Society, essentially different from that of Nikita Muraviev, the theorist of the moderate Northern group? In his running analysis Mazour avoids oversimplification in defining the motives of the chief actors and groups, but occasionally, in summarizing, he attributes to them a preternatural clarity of class perception and motivation. Even the most rigid dogmatists of the class struggle make ample allowance for the illusion of universality inherent in ideals of political liberation in their great periods. No less allowance, surely, should be made in the case of the De- cembrists, who soared higher and fell lower than any of their fellow libera- tors elsewhere in Europe.

After the author's able analysis of the variety of contradictory aims and embryonic organizations which is commonly lumped together as the De- cembrist movement, it is puzzling to find the failure of the revolts in St. Petersburg and in the South attributed above all to the lack of resolute and able strategists (pp. I76, I99). The brief analysis of the Speransky consti- tution offers one slight point of confusion: apparently the ministry was to be co-ordinated through the state council with the legislative and judicial branches of the government and was at the same time to be responsible to the crown alone (p. 26). In a few places the diction is obscure.

The bibliography will be of great value to students engaged in research, especially in tracing down recent books and articles. The beginning stu- dent may find some interest in the extracts from contemporary documents on pages 273-9I.

Cornell University. PHILIP E. MOSELY.

Theodor von Schdn, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, und die Revolution von i848. Von HANS ROTHFELS. [Schriften der Konigsberger Gelehrten Gesell- schaft. Heft 2.] (Halle: Max Niemeyer. I937. PP. 9I-303. i6 M.) IT is fitting that a distinguished professor at the University of K6nigsberg

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Roth/els: Theodor von Schon 62I

should produce a volume devoted to a statesman whose life was so closely connected with East Prussia. In his introduction Professor Rothfels an- nounces the forthcoming appearance in the publications of the K6nigs- berger Gelehrten Gesellschaft of several other studies on Theodor von Sch6n and his times. The volume under review is based upon documents which have, in large part, only recently become available, and many of which are included in this book. Indeed, more than half the volume is de- voted to documents-forty letters between Frederick William IV and Schon, chiefly of the years I840-43, numerous letters from Schon to his brother-in-law Brunneck, and many memoranda on political questions dur- ing the forties.

The first part of the study traces the relations between Schon and Frederick William before i848. Sch6n first gained prominence in connec- tion with the emancipation of the serfs, and in i8i6 he became Oberpriisi- dent of East and West Prussia, where his administration was notable for internal improvements. A former pupil of Kant, who had made him a doctrinaire, and of C. J. Kraus, who had made him an adherent of laissez- faire, Sch6n was the leader of the East Prussian liberals. His cordial rela- tions of long standing with the crown prince led many liberals to hope and believe that when Frederick William became king Schon would become chancellor under a liberal regime. Professor Rothfels covers in considerable detail the complicated struggle for power between Sch6n and Gustav von Rochow, a struggle which resulted in the dismissal of both statesmen in I842. The king was genuinely fond of Schon and was sympathetic to liberal ideas, but he opposed Sch6n's demand for a Prussian national assembly and resented his attacks upon the ministry and especially Sch6n's arrogant attempts to force a decision between himself and Rochow. In the years fol- lowing his dismissal Sch6n became ever more critical of the king and his government.

The second part of the work concerns Schon's relations to the revolu- tions of I848. He was a member of the Prussian national assembly, and several times it seemed possible that he might become a member or even the head of the ministry. Always more of a Prussian than a German, he bitterly criticized and ridiculed the attempts of the Frankfort Assembly to create a German national state.

In his scholarly and thorough study Professor Rothfels shows himself distinctly friendly to Sch6n, whom he believes to have been treated too harshly by earlier historians. Sch6n was first of all a doctrinaire, a Kantian, a believer in the force of ideas. He was an economic liberal who disliked the Zollverein, the dominance of the nobility, and any state intervention on behalf of the Silesian weavers. His political ideal was a constitutional monarchy on the English model. To Schon the "state" was almost sacred,

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622 Reviews of Books

and every scheme for German unification seemed to promise the extinction or absorption of his beloved Prussian state.

Dartmouth College. JOHN G. GAZLEY.

The Separation of Church and State in Italian Thought from Cavour to Mussolini. By S. WILLIAM HALPERIN, University of Chicago. (Chicago: University Press. I937. Pp. viii, II5. $2.00.) DR. Halperin warns us in his preface that "he is only concerned with

the theoretical discussions of this question", and that "the specific issues of the church-state conflict in Italy are outside the scope of this study". In effect his book is a short but well-arranged summary of opinions and theories of Italian writers and politicians from i850 to our day on the ques- tion of the separation of church and state. The picture which he presents is not set, however, against a philosophical and juridical background such as one would expect in a theoretical treatment. In dealing with a subject like this, moreover, the voluntary limitations set by the author to his work not only mar considerably its usefulness but make almost inevitable a certain distortion of perspective. After all, the Italian writers and politicians- mostly politicians-of the Risorgimento were not, generally speaking, arm- chair philosophers and jurists discussing merely theoretical questions but were very often men of action confronted by concrete problems for which they had to find practical solutions. The analysis of their theories in their historical context by the detailed treatment of the specific issues involved is thus inseparable from the theoretical discussion. It is not enough to make only casual reference to those issues "as salient features of the mise en scene

The author's rigid classification of theories may be right in a theoretical treatment, but their attribution to specific Italian political groups of that period is not consistent with the historical facts. Above all he unduly em- phasizes the divergencies and conflicts of opinions among the various liberal groups and pays little attention to the more important fact that all of them were in agreement on one essential point. This point was that in view of the peculiar situation of the church in Italy no separation was possible unless the church was first stripped of all privileges and all political power and unless its temporalities were kept under a certain degree of state con- trol as long as a clerical political reaction was to be feared. At the same time this was the crucial practical question that caused most of the divergencies among the liberal groups, which advocated, in varying degrees, radical meas- ures of confiscation of ecclesiastical properties and severe laws restricting ecclesiastical liberties. In a general way it could be said that all the Italian liberals were from one point of view separatists and from another jurisdic- tionalists.

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