Dear Sir,
Though I should deem my cares needless, especially when addressing such a man as you, you yourself may perhaps concede that patriotic cares, in themselves, are not superfluous. That is why I share those cares with you now:
I fear disaster will ensue if the German Parliament does not take the following immediate decisions:
1. The existing German Federal Diet must be dissolved: Parliament will thus assume all constituent power, together with the authority to appoint a provisional committee from within its ranks to hold executive power.
2. Immediate issue of arms to the whole country in accordance with the usual method.
3. Offensive and defensive alliance with France. - These three measures will be sufficient to give a definite sense of direction to the struggle which has now become inevitable: two distinct parties will emerge in every region and in every town: the Frankfurt (German) Party and the Special Government Party. This will bring things to a head.
The fourth step will then be the territorial question of the German states. If the Frankfurt Assembly has the task of producing a constitution which will unite Germany, its first priority must be to deal with the inequality which exists among the individual German states; it must appoint a commission whose task it will be to propose a rational and natural basis for the setting up of a German state on the principle that states will not be admitted with a population of below 3 million and above 6 million inhabitants.
This, finally, is the decisive moment: indeed, if this reform is not introduced, all our work will simply be piecemeal. It depends then upon the attitude of the princes as to the fate which befalls them: if they begin by opposing us and by protesting, they shall without exception stand accused on a charge which can be perfectly justified from an historical point of view.
Only when these questions have been resolved and when these battles have been fought shall the assembly proceed to the task of drawing up a constitution, since this task cannot be taken in hand until such time as we have cleared the ground. How useless would a new constitution be, given the present state of Germany! Parliament must first revolutionize the individual states, and it shall do so by means of the first laws it enacts, since these laws will give the parties the support they need and which has been lacking until now.
If you were to find yourself able to share my views and thus to do all you can to influence the assembly in this way, it would be to your eternal credit. If you seek less rigorous means, you will not achieve your goal!
I wish you every success!
Your
devoted servant
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 80