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German Federal Act (June 8, 1815)

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Art. 9. The Confederal Assembly shall have its seat in Frankfurth am Main. The opening meeting is fixed for September 1, 1815.

Art. 10. The first order of business for the Confederal Assembly after its opening will be drawing up the Basic Laws of the Confederation and [composing] its organic institutions with respect to its foreign, military, and domestic relations.

Art. 11. All members of the Confederation pledge themselves to protect Germany as a whole, as well as every single confederated state, against attack, and mutually guarantee their entire possessions, insofar as those are included within the Confederation.
When war is declared on the Confederation, no member shall negotiate separately with the enemy, or conclude an armistice or make peace.
The members of the Confederation reserve for themselves the right to form alliances of all kinds. The pledge themselves, however, to contract no engagement which shall be directed against the safety of the Confederation or that of any individual state within the nation.
The members of the Confederation pledge themselves likewise not to make war among themselves under any pretense, or to follow up their contentions with force, but to submit these to the Confederal Assembly. It shall devolve upon this body to attempt arbitration by means of a committee. Should this fail and a judicial decision become necessary, the same shall be effected through a well-organized court of arbitration, to the decision of which the conflicting parties shall forthwith submit.

II. Special Regulations

In addition to the points determined in the previous articles, which address the establishment of a Confederation, the Confederal members have agreed to the following items in the regulations included in the subsequent articles, each of which shall be as important as those listed above.

[ . . . ]

Art. 13. All Confederal states will be given an estate-based constitution.

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