Under no circumstances may the government unilaterally pass or reject a state constitution.

Ludwig Uhland, Proposed Amendment to §45 of the ‘Draft of the Basic Rights of the German Nation’. In: Stenographischer Bericht über die Verhandlungen der deutschen constituirenden National-Versammlung zu Frankfurt a.M., Vol. 7, No. 170, 14.2.1849, p. 5175

The same day as his motion for the ‘periodic election by the parliament of an imperial head of state’ had been rejected, Uhland proposed an amendment aimed at preventing the same thing happening at national level as had happened in Prussia, in other words to prevent a regent himself or a government appointed by him from simply imposing a constitution by decree.

Yet just a few weeks later, the National Assembly in Frankfurt elected Frederick William IV ‘Emperor of the Germans’. When a parliamentary deputation offered him the imperial crown on 3rd April 1849, Frederick William IV refused it, at a stroke destroying all hopes of national unity.