The debates were secret; it was an assembly of the ablest statesmen in Germany; the decisions at which it arrived were laid in their complete form before the Reichstag.

It was a substitute for a Second Chamber, but it was also a Council of State; it united the duties of the Privy Council and the House of Lords; it reminds us in its composition of the American Senate, but it would be a Senate in which the President of the Republic presided.
Bismarck never ceased to maintain the importance of the Federal Council; he always looked on it as the key to the whole new Constitution.

Shortly after the war with France, when the Liberals made an attempt to overthrow its authority, he warned them not to do so.
"I believe," he said, "that the Federal Council has a great future.

Great as Prussia is, we have been able to learn much from the small, even from the smallest member of it; they on their side have learnt much from us.

From my own experience I can say that I have made considerable advance in my political education by taking part in the sittings of the Council and by the life which comes from the friction of five and twenty German centres with one another.