Government, while they undertook, so far as they were able, to maintain and strengthen the constitutional rights of Parliament. By this Bismarck had a Parliamentary majority, and he more and more depended upon them rather than his old friends, the Conservatives. He required their support because henceforward he would have to deal not with one Parliament, but two. The North German Confedcration was to have its Parliament elected by universal suffrage. Bismarck foresaw that the principles he had upheld in the past could not be applied in the same form to the whole of the Confederation. The Prussian Conservative party was purely Prussian, it was Particularist; had he continued to depend upon it, then all the members sent to the new Reichstag, not only from Saxony, but also from the annexed States, would have been thrown into opposition; the Liberal party had always been not Prussian but German; now that he had to govern so large a portion of Germany, that which had in the past been the great cause of difference would be the strongest bond of union. The National Liberal party was alone able to join him in the work of creating enthusiasm for the new institutions and new loyalty. How often had he in the old days complained of the Liberals that they thought not as Prussians, that they were ashamed of Prussia, that they were not really loyal to Prussia. Now he knew that just for this reason they would be most loyal to the North German Confederation.
Bismarck's moderation in the hour of victory must not obscure the importance of his triumph.
