Holy Roman Empire and American Government

            As I was reading this chapter, one of the things that really jumped out at me were the similarities between the way that the Holy Roman Empire was ruled before Germany was its own country, and our own American government.  Hagen Schulze explains their first constitution, Emperor Charles IV’s Golden Bull, by saying the document “made the German king dependent on the chief nobles of the realm” (32).  This strongly reminds me of our own three branches of government.  Like the executive, judicial, and legislative branches check and balance one another so that no one can become too powerful, the King is kept in check by the chief nobles.  Additionally, the king was “imperator electus,” or an elected emperor.  This is similar to the President of the United States because both are elected, not just put in place because of inheritance or by overthrowing their predecessor.  They are also both elected by a select group of people.  While everyone votes in the United States, the true electing is done by the Electoral College.  Likewise, in the empire the electing was done by the prince electors.  One last thing that the Golden Bull did was separate church and state by making no mention of the pope.  While they still expected people to follow in the Catholic religion even though it is not explicitly stated, it was one step toward religious freedom.  It is interesting to me that democracy in these subtle forms was present so long ago.  We often view past governments as all being ruled by an inherited monarch where no one else had any say, but this is simply not true for all governments.  One last similarity between the Holy Roman Empire and American Government is that there are comparable “federal” and “state” governments.  The Holy Roman Empire consisted of a huge area of smaller states, cities, and towns.  The empire did not have the time or power to watch closely upon each smaller section, therefore “most towns and cities of the empire belonged to the territory of one principality or another and were governed by its ruler” (39).  This is an unintentional form of “state governments” such as the United States have.  The “states” must follow under the rule of the governments set in place by the governor of that state, but also by the guidelines set in place by the larger “federal government.”  I must wonder how much of these governing techniques are still present in Germany today.  When they became their own country, how much did they change?  How does the German government now compare to today’s American government?  I would be very interested to compare and contrast the two governments in modern times.

Word Count: 448

Citation: Schulze, Hagen. Germany: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. Print.

The image above is Emperor Charles IV’s Golden Bull, the first constitution of the Holy Roman Empire.  It got its name from the gold seal attached to it (32).

The prince electors were a group of men who voted on the election of the emperor.  This group was clearly defined within the Golden Bull and consisted of the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier; the King of Bohemia; the Duke of Saxony; the Margrave of Brandenburg; and the Count Palatine of the Rhine (32).

Picture Citations:

http://www.altfrankfurt.com/spezial/Kaiserkroenung/GoldeneBulle.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector