The acquirement, however, of new and valuable territories in Westphalia and along the Rhine, besides Thuringia and the province of Saxony, more than compensated for the loss of certain Slav districts in the east, as thereby the way was prepared for the ultimate despotism of the Prussian King over all Germany.

The success of Prussian diplomacy in enslaving these erstwhile independent German lands in 1815 was crucial for the subsequent direction of Prussian policy.
It is time now to return once more to the internal conditions in the Prussian State now dominant over a large part of Northern Germany.

A Constitution had been more than once talked of, but the despotism with its bureaucratic machinery had remained.

Now, after the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars and the re-drawing of the Prussian frontier lines by the peace of 1815, the matter assumed an urgency it had not had before.

Following upon proclamations and promises, a patent was addressed to the new Saxon provinces granting a national _Landtag_, or Diet, for the whole country.