Editing Unification of Germany (section)

==== Frankfurt Parliament====
[[File:Parliament Frankfurt Pauls Church 1848.jpg|thumb|alt=Romanesque church, men marching into it, through a phalanx of uniformed men, houses and church are draped in banners and flags|Pre-parliament delegates processing into [[Paulskirche|Paul's Church]] in Frankfurt, where they laid the groundwork for electing a National Parliament<ref>{{in lang|de}} Badische Heimat/Landeskunde online 2006 [http://www.zum.de/Faecher/G/BW/Landeskunde/rhein/geschichte/1848/national03.htm Veit's Pauls Church ''Germania'']. Retrieved 5 June 2009.</ref>]]

Their pressure resulted in a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the [[Prussian three-class franchise]], which weighted votes based on the amount of taxes paid and therefore gave some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier, landed ones—greater representative power.{{Sfn|Blackbourn|1998|pp=138–164}}

On 27 March 1849, the [[Frankfurt Parliament]] passed the ''[[Paulskirchenverfassung]]'' (Constitution of St. Paul's Church) and offered the title of ''Kaiser'' (Emperor) to the Prussian king [[Frederick William IV]] the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared opposition from the other German princes and military intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of "clay".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sperber |first=Jonathan |title=Revolutionary Europe, 1780–1850 |date=2000 |publisher=Longman |isbn=0-5822-9446-0 |location=New York |ol=6779824M |author-link=Jonathan Sperber}}.{{page needed|date=May 2025}}</ref> Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft a constitution and reach an agreement on the ''kleindeutsch'' solution. While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms.{{Sfn|Blackbourn|1998|pp=176–179}}