Here it is that we see the greatest originality.

German writers have often explained that it is impossible to classify the new State in any known category, and in following their attempts to find the technical definition for the authority on which it rests, one is led almost to doubt whether it really exists at all.
There are two agents of government, the Federal Council, or _Bundesrath_, and the Parliament, or _Reichstag_.

Here again we see the blending of the old and new, for while the Parliament was now created for the first time, the Council was really nothing but the old Federal Diet.

Even the old system of voting was retained; not that this was better than any other system, but, as Bismarck explained, it was easier to preserve the old than to agree on a new.

Any system must have been purely arbitrary, for had each State received a number of votes proportionate to its population even the appearance of a federation would have been lost, and Bismarck was very anxious not to establish an absolute unity under Prussia.
It will be asked, why was Bismarck now so careful in his treatment of the smaller States?
The answer will be found in words which he had written many years ago: "I do not wish to see Germany substituted for Prussia on our banner until we have brought about a closer and more practical union with our fellow-countrymen." Now the time had come, and now he was to be the first and most patriotic of Germans as in old days he had been the strictest of Prussians.