Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung May 1849

Prohibition of the Meeting of the Rhenish Municipal Councils


Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 389;
Written: by Engels on May 2, 1849;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 288, May 3, 1849.


Cologne, May 2. It is with especial satisfaction that we inform our readers that the meeting of the representatives of municipal councils of the Rhine Province convened by the praiseworthy Cologne municipal council has been prohibited by a simple government order.[306] The “good citizens”, who felt so “comfortable” when meetings of democrats were prohibited in September, [307] can now offer thanks to their lords and masters. In September 1848 the democrats’ right of assembly was destroyed at least by the respectable violence of the state of siege; the Cologne municipal council’s right of assembly, on the other hand, has met its end by a kick at a time when the legal basis is in finest flower.