The Rhineland under the Prussians (from 1815)

Prussian Attempts at Reform in the Rhineland

After 1815 the Rhineland and Westphalia were subject to a completely new administrative rearrangement. By 1822 five administrative districts had formed: Düsseldorf, Aachen, Cologne, Münster and Arnsberg. The provincial constitutions made Prussia into a State of regions. Even though they were a continuation of the system of estates, they turned out to be an important innovation: the assembly members were elected from the "estates" and were affiliated to them, in future representing the interests of the aristocracy, the towns and the farmers in the province, not representatives of all the people. A prerequisite of the right to be elected was ownership of property for many years. The mandates of knighted aristocrats (Junkers), towns and farmers in the provincial assemblies were divided in the East in a ratio of 3:2:1, in the West about 1:1:1. In addition to these came the mediatised princes and other hereditary members (in the Rhine Province only 6.3%). At the Rhine the aristo-friendly Estates' Assembly had yet to be established. There the aristocrats, who owned four percent of property, were finally awarded one third of the seats in the Provincial Assembly. In this way the western ratios were brought into line with those in the east, which had always been disproportionate to the population.