9 - At what point existing in reality the new national education of the Germans will begin

Summary

In our last address we furnished and completed several proofs that we had already promised in the first. The only issue for now, we said, and let this be our first task, is to save and perpetuate the existence of the German as such; all other differences vanished before this higher vantage point and the special obligations under which anyone might consider himself to be would not thereby be prejudiced. It is clear, if only we call to mind the distinction we made between state and nation, that even in earlier times the interests [Angelegenheiten] of both could never come into conflict. Besides, higher patriotic love for the whole people of the German nation had to assume the supreme leadership of each particular German state, just as it ought to have done. None of these states could lose sight of this higher interest without forfeiting all that was noble and excellent, thereby hastening its own demise: the more someone was seized and animated by that higher interest, therefore, the better citizen he was in service of the particular German state in which his immediate sphere of activity lay. German states could well clash with other German states over certain traditional franchises. Whoever wished the established situation to continue – and doubtless every reasonable man was bound to want this for the sake of its further consequences – had to hope that the just cause would prevail, no matter who its champion might be.