Excerpt from Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 7 The situation had indeed become desperate when an ardent patriot like Emanuel Geibel, the poet who wrote, and doubtless believed, that through the German character the world will be made whole, had now to admit that Germany is sick unto death, and must be blooded. Long before this a moderate man like the historian Niebuhr, while landing the past utility of unlimited monarchy, had declared his conviction that it was no longer sustained by popular faith, or conformable to the conditions and needs of the time. He was only one of many contemporary representatives of learning who took sides, for or against, on the burning question of constitutional reform. It was at this time that the German professor made his first systematic appearance in political controversy. The constitutional movement and the first schleswig-holstein dispute of 1846-50 together drew many occupants of chairs of history in particular into public life, and from that time forward until the present day the German professor has continued to divide his interest between the study and the political arena. The Frankfort National Assembly of 1848-9 was so liberally leavened by academic teachers that it has ever since been known as the Professors' Parliament. The national unity movement in all its later phases owed much to these men; and they were largely represented in the early Diets of the new Empire. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.