In a modern European State, when all men can read and write, and all men must serve in the army, there is no means of limiting the franchise in a way which will command universal consent.

In Germany there was not any old historical practice to which men could appeal or which could naturally be applied to the new Parliament; universal suffrage at least gave something clear, comprehensible, final.
Men more easily believed in the permanence of the new State when every German received for the first time the full privilege of citizenship.

We must notice, however, that Bismarck had always intended that voting should be open; the Parliament in revising the Constitution introduced the ballot.

He gave his consent with much reluctance; voting seemed to him to be a public duty, and to perform it in secret was to undermine the roots of political life.

He was a man who was constitutionally unable to understand fear.