The victory of Sedan was the foundation of German unity; Bismarck's moderation and reserve now earned its reward; he had always refused to press the southern States into the Federation; now the offer to join came from them.

Baden asked, as she had already done at the beginning of the year, to be received into the Union; the settlement with Wurtemberg, and above all with Bavaria, was less simple.

At the request of the Bavarian Government Delbrueck was sent to Munich for an interchange of opinion, and the negotiations which were begun there were afterwards continued at Versailles and Berlin.

There were many difficulties to be overcome: the Bavarians were very jealous of their independence and were not prepared to put themselves into the position which, for instance, Saxony occupied.

But the difficulties on the Prussian side were equally great: the Liberal party wished that the Constitution should be revised and those points in it which they had always disliked altered; they would have made the government of the Federal authorities more direct, have created a Federal Ministry and a Federal Upper House, and so really changed the Federation into a simple State, thereby taking away all the independence of the dynasties.