It was doubtless a perception of the vast gains to the national cause which prompted the Prussian Parliament to pass a Bill of Indemnity exonerating the King's Ministers for the illegal acts committed by them during the "Conflict Time" (1861-66)--acts which saved Prussia in spite of her Parliament.
Constitutional freedom likewise benefited largely by the results of the war.

The new North German Confederation was based avowedly on manhood suffrage, not because either King William or Bismarck loved democracy, but because after lately pledging themselves to it as the groundwork of reform of the old Confederation, they could not draw back in the hour of triumph.

As Bismarck afterwards confessed to his Secretary, Dr.Busch, "I accepted universal suffrage, but with reluctance, as a Frankfurt tradition" (_i.e._ of the democratic Parliament of Frankfurt in 1848)[6].

All the lands, therefore, between the Niemen and the Main were bound together in a Confederation based on constitutional principles, though the governing powers of the King and his Ministers continued to be far larger than is the case in Great Britain.

To this matter we shall recur when we treat of the German Empire, formed by the union of the North and South German Confederations of 1866.
[6] Busch, _Our Chancellor_, vol.ii.p.